Chapter 78: Forward Toward Success (2)
TL: Hanguk
Beyond the car windows, open fields and rolling hills alternated endlessly as we cruised down the road, and here and there, orchards that had already finished their harvest stood with bare branches, preparing for winter.
Chloe had the wheel, and from the passenger seat I kept glancing back and forth between the map and the road signs.
"She said if we turn right here, we'll see it. The place is called... Sandy Hill Nursery. Huh? There it is!"
Once we made the turn, we passed through a small grove of oaks and came out onto a wide stretch of open land. In the middle of it stood a white wood-frame building dusted lightly with earth, apparently serving as both a warehouse and an office. The roof had faded in patches with age, and on one side, the word NURSERY was painted in large, vivid red letters.
In front of it, several greenhouses stood in a neat row. Their clear plastic sheeting glittered in the sunlight, and inside, little trees were lined up close together in tidy rows.
When we parked the car, a middle-aged farm owner in a low-pulled hat came walking out from in front of the building. His boots were caked with dry dirt, and he held a pair of work gloves in one hand.
"Welcome. You came to see pear saplings?"
"Yes."
"Follow me."
We followed the farm owner into one of the greenhouses. The interior was longer and wider than I'd expected, and near the ceiling, thin watering pipes wove together like spiderwebs. The air was heavy with the mingled scent of soil and moisture, faintly damp but filled with the smell of living trees.
Small saplings, about waist-high, were planted in even rows. The farm owner gestured toward them as he explained.
"The row on the right here is Asian pears, and the left side is mostly European pears, which we use as rootstock. The rootstock has good drainage and strong pest resistance, so grafting onto it makes things a lot more stable."
Chloe ran her hand along one of the trunks.
"They look sturdier than I thought. It's hard to believe this is the first step of the farm I'm about to start."
I smiled and nodded.
"For Niitaka pears, the rootstock you graft onto really matters. If you plant them straight into poorly drained soil, the roots rot in no time. Grafted onto European pear rootstock, they'll hold up much longer."
The farm owner pulled up one of the saplings and shook off the soil to show us. Alongside a straight, well-extended taproot, fine root hairs were packed densely together.
"This one grew in over the summer, and the roots are in excellent shape. As long as the graft is done properly, it'll establish quickly come next spring, guaranteed."
Chloe nodded and looked over at me.
"This'll work, right?"
"Yeah. Just manage the graft site carefully and it'll be fine. Sir, how much volume do you have on these Niitaka pear saplings?"
The farm owner took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his brow.
"I've got about 5,000 secured this year. How many do you need?"
"We'd need around 14,000."
At my answer, the middle-aged farm owner stared off into the distance for a long moment before speaking.
"Should be doable, I reckon. The rest I can graft onto more rootstock in time for spring delivery. But you'd have to lock in the contract now. Come spring, the reservations pile up and the stock moves fast."
Chloe's eyes sparkled as she asked.
"How much per sapling?"
"Around eighteen dollars."
Just as I was about to say that was too expensive, Chloe furrowed her brow and spoke first.
"A bulk purchase of 14,000 saplings, and surely there's some kind of discount involved, right? For the record, I'm the daughter of a family that owns the 200-acre Harris cherry farm out in Brentwood. On top of that, we grow walnuts, tomatoes, olives... I'm not some clueless beginner."
The farm owner flinched a little at her confident introduction and gave an awkward smile.
"Hah, I only gave you the retail price because you asked. Of course, at this kind of scale, there's a bulk discount. I can bring it down to twelve dollars a sapling. In exchange, you put down a 30% deposit, and I'll have the full quantity ready for you come next spring."
"So 14,000 saplings total would be...?"
The farm owner immediately pulled a calculator from his big pocket.
"168,000 dollars. You'd need to put down around 50,000 as a deposit. On top of that, transport goes out by the truckload. We bundle them on trays, 500 saplings per tray, and each truck holds about 2,000 saplings. Since you're based in Brentwood, you'll need to make roughly seven round trips, just so you know."
Chloe murmured as if taking notes.
"30% deposit, balance on delivery in spring. Twelve dollars per sapling, 14,000 saplings..."
Then she promptly stuck out her hand and shook on it with the farm owner.
"Sounds good. Let's do it. I'll write you the deposit check right now."
A wide smile spread across the farm owner's face.
"At this scale, you'll have yourself a proper orchard next year. Niitaka pears are selling pretty well at the Asian markets these days, so from where I'm sitting, this is a fantastic pick. Raise these pears right and the fruit gets this big. Bet you've never even seen one."
He held out both arms as if cradling something enormous to show just how big a Niitaka pear could get, but Chloe, who had already seen one with her own eyes, just shrugged and smiled.
"I've seen them. I've eaten the imported ones from Korea."
"Oh, really?"
The capital Chloe was pouring into cultivating Niitaka pears would run to at least a million dollars, if not more. There was no way she'd commit that kind of money without so much as tasting one first, so she had gone with her dad down to LA to try the Niitaka pears imported from Korea.
What she had felt when she first saw a Niitaka pear back then was sheer astonishment. The fruit was enormous, far beyond what she had imagined. On top of that, the juice was abundant and the sweetness was rich, and right then and there she declared to her dad that she wanted him to hand over a piece of land.
The urge to grow this fruit with her own hands had taken hold of her.
Of course, the fact that one of those large, well-ripened Niitaka pears went for nearly seven dollars apiece also played a decisive role in pushing her toward that decision.
"Let's draw up the contract right now."
"Sure thing. Come on."
I had confirmed the condition of the saplings wasn't bad, so I gave Chloe the signal that it was fine to sign, and she boldly followed the farm owner into the building. The old building had a musty smell to it, but neither Chloe nor I paid it any mind.
The farm owner brought out a contract and spread it across a small desk. It was a cheap folding desk, with ink stains here and there marking long years of use. Chloe signed without hesitation and wrote out a check on the spot. Young as she was, there was no trace of hesitation in the way her hand moved across the contract and the checkbook.
When we left the farm and climbed back into the car, Chloe carefully set the contract on the back seat and turned to me with a bright smile.
"From now on, you can call me Farm Owner Chloe."
"Somebody's thrilled."
"Obviously."
She hit the accelerator with gusto and set off for Brentwood.
Around the time Brian was out driving around with Chloe in search of saplings, over at White & Co. Wine Trading in LA.
"Heh heh heh..."
To anyone watching, Christopher White might have looked like a man who had lost his mind. He had been wandering around letting out little giggles for days now. But the employees didn't find the CEO's behavior strange in the slightest. He'd gone all-in on 2,000 cases of wine, and that wine had just taken home a Double Gold. They understood exactly how ecstatic he must be.
The office was buzzing. Order forms kept piling up from the fax machine, and the sales team was glued to their phones, voices rising as they hashed out prices and quantities. Over in logistics, Helen had spent the whole day rearranging air freight and truck schedules.
"Sir, I've secured the air cargo slot out of JFK. 200 cases are going out tonight."
"Good. Check on the Boston and Philadelphia volumes too."
As if all of that weren't enough to put him in a good mood, Christopher was also gazing at the latest issue of Wine Enthusiast on his desk like a man in love. Across the glossy cover, the crisp lettering seemed to greet him.
[Redwood, Napa Valley's Dark Horse]
Christopher slowly turned the cover with his finger, and a photograph filling two full pages came into view: a scene from Redwood Winery. He saw bottles of Echelon and Sylphide sitting on a table bathed in light, and the face of a young Asian man smiling during an interview.
"That's it... this is exactly it. Buying up every last bottle of Sylphide was a stroke of genius."
Just then, the phone rang. The voice of Mark, the sales team leader, was urgent.
"Sir, the orders are pouring in. 200 cases from New York alone, and Boston just put in an additional request for 150. D.C. is asking for 300 cases to prep for banquet season."
"Mark, what's inventory looking like?"
"About 800 cases left in the East Coast warehouse. But at this rate, it'll all be out the door by the end of the week."
"Pace it out. Don't send it all at once, keep them hungry."
"Understood."
After hanging up, Christopher opened the magazine again and read a passage of the article aloud.
"Redwood Winery takes home simultaneous Double Golds for its 2004 vintage Echelon and Sylphide. A remarkable achievement for such a young winery. The Echelon, despite a short aging period, displays surprising structure and balance, while the Sylphide showcases the delicacy and complexity of a Russian River Valley Pinot Noir. These wines prove the new potential of Napa Valley... A bit on the dry side, but not bad."
From a critic's perspective, of course, the writing had to be as restrained as possible, but from a wine distributor's perspective, he would have preferred they laid it on as thick as they could. Still, this was good enough. Weren't the results already coming in?
Around noon, the phone rang again. This time it was a sommelier friend of his working in New York.
"Christopher, it's chaos over here. Customers are flooding in looking for Sylphide. Some shops are already trading it at 150 bucks a bottle. You're insane. How did you get your hands on something like this?"
Christopher stifled a laugh as he answered.
"I'm not insane, I just made the right call. This is only the beginning."
Wine distribution wasn't really a business built on chasing one big hit. It was about standing alongside a winery as it built up its history and evolved year after year, growing together with it. That was what wine distribution truly was.
And the most crucial skill in that process was vision: finding small wineries with clear potential and investing in them. In a sense, wine distribution was a form of management for the wineries themselves.
From that angle, Christopher understood just how enormous a stroke of luck it had been to cross paths with Redwood Winery. And plowing the hefty sum of 800,000 dollars into betting everything on Sylphide, that was going to turn out to be the best decision of his life.
"I can't just sit here."
He shot up from his seat.
"Where are you going, sir?"
"To Redwood!"
It was over a six-hour drive from LA to Napa Valley, meaning he'd arrive by evening, but he didn't care. Just to be safe, he called Brian and locked in a dinner meeting, then set off for Napa Valley at a leisurely pace.
Arriving in a dimly lit Napa Valley, he stepped into Brian's house, which stood not far from Redwood Farm.
"Come on in."
The aroma of roast chicken warming the inside of the house made Christopher sniff the air appreciatively.
"So you've got a talent for cooking too, I see?"
I cut off a piece of the freshly made roast chicken with a knife and handed it to Christopher.
"Honestly, I've always been more into cooking than wine."
For me, cooking had always been a pleasure while wine was a discipline, and food had always felt closer to my heart. But since coming back, that was starting to shift. How to put it... wine was becoming a pleasure too, now.
I brought out the Ridge Vineyards Zinfandel I'd picked up at the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition.
"Since you're a wine critic, I'd love to offer you something pricier, but I tend to be a bit stingy in that department... still, this should pair nicely."
Christopher let a faint smile tug at the corner of his mouth.
"Zinfandel's trademark ripe fruit aromas and spice, with that balanced structure, pair beautifully with meat. You're young, but you've got a deep grasp of pairing too?"
"I just like it. So, what brings you all the way out here at this late hour?"
He took a sip of the wine with a solemn expression, then fixed me with a settled, deliberate gaze.
"The Sylphide that's launching next year. I'd like to forward purchase the entire lot."
"All 3,000 cases?"
"Yes."
"The price won't be the same as this year, you know?"
"What figure do you have in mind?"
This was a wine that had just taken home a Double Gold medal. There was no reason to keep it cheap.
"I'd raise it to 70 dollars. Would you still buy?"
When I bumped it up to more than double the previous 33 dollars, Christopher was caught off guard. At that price point, retail would quickly settle somewhere between 100 and 150 dollars a bottle. The full 3,000 cases would come out to over 2.5 million dollars.
But he spoke as if he'd already made up his mind.
"Yes, let's do it. I'll take the whole lot at 70 dollars."
Christopher was certain. This contract was going to be a win-win for both Redwood and himself.
*****
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