Chapter 83: The One (1)
TL: Hanguk
David Hoffman, waiting at Ironwood Cellars for the appointed hour, was staring blankly out at the vineyard.
'I make it.'
At first he'd just snorted on hearing it, but for some reason that one line from the still-young Asian kid kept circling back into his ears. From what he'd been told, the boy was only a sophomore at UC Davis now, wasn't he?
'No way... A college sophomore pulled in a Double Gold? Hah! Even if Mondavi himself were reincarnated, that'd be impossible!'
And yet, little by little, he was beginning to think that maybe the story was true after all. According to the rumors trickling in through the workers, the one holed up in the aging cellar all that time hadn't been the father but the son.
In truth, who actually made the wine wasn't important to him. It had happened at someone else's winery, and now that he was selling the farm, he intended to wash his hands of wine entirely. So what did it matter whether the maker was twenty or ten?
The funny thing was, even knowing all that, he couldn't stop being bothered by it. Perhaps it was the self-loathing that came from witnessing overwhelming talent up close.
Maybe that was why, even with $3,600,000 about to land in his hands, he wasn't feeling much of the thrill of suddenly being rich, and was simply waiting in a daze for his guests to arrive.
Dad, the lawyer who'd come to help with the contract, and I made our way into the old Ironwood Cellars building. On the table sat the contract and a pen, and beside them, in place of coffee, three glasses of water.
David Hoffman watched us with a strangely tense expression, while the lawyer adjusted his glasses and spread out the documents.
"I'll briefly confirm the main provisions of the contract. First, the subject of this transaction is the entire Ironwood Cellars vineyard and all attached buildings, a total of thirty acres. Second, the sale price is USD 3,600,000. Third, the warranty period for any defects in land or facilities is six months. Fourth, the current grape cultivation license and wine production permit will be transferred under the name of Redwood Winery. Finally, this contract takes effect upon approval by the Napa Valley Agricultural Board."
A brief silence settled over the room. The lawyers exchanged the contracts, checked the signatures against one another, and on the final page Dad picked up the pen and signed. The scratching sound of the nib echoed through the office.
"Well done."
After the contract was complete, Dad, David Hoffman, and the lawyers all shook hands. As all the procedures ended and we were about to leave, David caught me and asked,
"I have a favor to ask. Would you do it for me?"
"... Sure."
"Would you come down to the aging cellar with me? Just you, alone."
I exchanged a glance with Dad, told him to wait in the car with the lawyer, and followed David in.
I'd been in the aging cellar once before, but the unsold wine was still sitting there in barrel form. Since the wine wasn't moving, the whole winery had been valued as a single package, but now David drew a little wine out of one of those barrels and poured it into a glass.
"Want to give it a taste?"
"Sure."
The glass he held out had a problem the moment I caught its scent. There were deep notes of plum and blackcurrant, sure, but behind them lurked a faint trace of vinegar mingled with the musty smell of wet leather.
"There's acetic acid coming through. Looks like some acetic fermentation has set in."
"Acetic fermentation?"
"There must have been secondary contact with air after fermentation. Either the top of the oak barrel wasn't completely sealed during aging, or there were big temperature swings, and that caused some minor oxidation."
He hung his head. He'd known there was a problem, but he hadn't been able to pinpoint exactly where it was, and yet this young man had identified the rough cause from a single whiff.
How could that be?
I brought the glass to my lips and took a sip. The instant it touched the tip of my tongue, I could tell the wine's balance was off. The sweetness hit first, and the acidity that followed behind was blunted. I tilted the glass slightly and spoke.
"Look. The sugar's good, but the acid is dull. It means there was too much moisture in the grapes. You didn't stop irrigating before the harvest period, did you?"
David's eyes widened.
"How did you...?"
"Two weeks before harvest, you have to check the Stem Water Potential (SWP) and put the vines into a 'thirsty state'. That's what shrinks the berries and concentrates the flavors. But here, the flesh is soft. There was too much water sitting inside each berry. In other words, you watered too much."
David bit his lip. He had only ever judged his irrigation schedule by the 'weather'. If a drought came, he gave more; if it got hot, he doubled it.
"That sort of..."
"UC Davis or the Agricultural Extension Office held a course on this, didn't they? Last year? The year before?"
"The year before, I think... and now that you mention it, there might have been a class on something like that."
"The year before, so 2003?"
The academic conclusion that the most accurate way to determine irrigation timing was to use a pressure chamber to measure stem water potential had been settled around 2002.
"That's right. But..."
"You thought it was a waste of time, right? You believed terroir decided everything in wine?"
"You see right through me."
"I'm a farmer. I don't believe farmers should just accept fate the way the heavens hand it down. We have to do everything possible to survive, and we have to fight tooth and nail for it. Looking at it that way, Mr. David, you put blind faith in the old traditional methods and ignored the latest research."
David, who had been biting his lip with a pained expression, soon turned calm eyes on me and asked,
"Is that how it was...? If I started learning grape cultivation properly now, even at this point, the way you have, do you think I could succeed?"
"Of course. Knowledge is fair to everyone."
He pondered for a long while, then a faint smile rose at the corners of his mouth.
"Thank you."
"Don't mention it."
I gave him a small bow and went out to where Dad was waiting.
"What did he want with you?"
When Dad, who'd been waiting in the car, asked, I shrugged.
"Nothing much. Let's go."
"All right."
I watched quietly as the letters spelling Ironwood Cellars, soon to be replaced by Redwood Farm, shrank smaller and smaller in the distance.
Meanwhile, David Hoffman, watching the car carrying the Asian father and son fade out of sight, made a phone call. The recipient was Michael Lowell.
"That was fast. Farm sold already? You coming to New York now?"
David Hoffman's hand trembled faintly. He forced his unsteady voice into something firmer.
"I'm not going to New York. I'm sorry."
"Huh? Why? Did something happen? Did the farm not sell?"
"No. The farm sold. For 3.6 million."
"That's a great sale! So what's the matter?"
"I... want to study."
"Study?"
"Yeah. I've started wanting to study wine."
"You mean go back to college?"
"I don't know. I'm not even sure myself yet... but I want to take it on properly this time. I've got the money now, so I'm going to try being a farm owner again. You probably think I'm an idiot for saying this right after selling the farm..."
But Michael's voice on the other end of the line was firm.
"No, David. I don't think you're an idiot. If anything, I think you're brave."
"... You really think so?"
"Yeah, I mean it. You don't have to come to New York. Honestly, I'm looking forward to this."
"Looking forward to it?"
"Of course. To the day I come out to cover your wine. A farm owner who once failed, who fell apart, beating himself and rising back up. It'll be a brilliant comeback story. And if you take a Double Gold off the back of that... no, Wine of the Year, just thinking about it gets my heart racing."
David wiped away the tears that had started to fall without him realizing and broke into a grin.
"Thanks for understanding... I'll call you again."
"Sure. I'm rooting for you."
After hanging up, David Hoffman looked one more time around the farm that now belonged to someone else, and his face lit up. Then he hurried into the storehouse to gather his belongings.
For the first time in ages, he felt heat rising back into his chest.
At the tail end of winter, when the air in northern Sacramento was still cold, the inside of Jacob's distillery was oddly warm. The aroma of vodka, freshly distilled from the stainless steel tanks, drifted through the air, and its distinctive grain scent grazed faintly against my nose.
"Our first shipment, finally."
Jacob wiped the alcohol off his hands and lifted a single pure white bottle. The clear liquid caught the sunlight inside the glass and shone bright, and on the label, in fine gold lettering, a single word was printed.
The One.
Beneath it, in smaller print, was written: Premium Rice Vodka, Distilled from California Grain.
"'Hana' in Korean, 'One' in English. Nice name. What made you think of using Korean?"
"It's a Korean-style liquor. I wanted to push the concept as far as I could."
"Why 'Hana', though?"
"It carries a lot of meanings. A beginning, harmony, and only one."
"Have you been studying Korean?"
Jacob laughed sheepishly and said,
"Nah, the truth is I went to the library, looked through a Korean dictionary, and picked something that sounded right."
"Even that's impressive."
"Nothing impressive about it. This is my first liquor, and it's the only liquor I want to make."
His fingertips trembled a little. All the preparation, the experimentation, the surveys, and the retries. Every part of that process was now contained in this one bottle.
"Let's go."
We packed up the liquor and headed for The Copper Glass, the cocktail bar in downtown Sacramento. The very place where Jacob had first asked for a tasting. Rachel, the owner, had been notified in advance and was already waiting.
Several glasses were lined up along the bar counter.
"So, you finally finished it?"
"Yes, it's the official product this time."
She took the bottle and examined the label.
"The One... that's the name?"
"Yes."
"I like it. Easy to remember, too."
Rachel poured the vodka and gave the glass a swirl. Light reflected off the glass walls, forming a white circle. She closed her eyes slightly as she took in the scent.
"Mmm... yeah, it's the same taste from before, exactly. Much smoother than your standard vodka, and there's that toasted grain note that lingers at the finish. This isn't just a cocktail base, you could drink it straight too. Honestly, vodka already has a market that's been completely locked down, so there's no real reason to try and replace it. But this... I think you could pull a lot of different impressions out of it."
"I hope the public takes to it."
If everything up to now had been a period of gathering opinions from bar owners, today was the day the released product would be judged by ordinary customers. It would be stranger not to be nervous.
Bit by bit people filtered into the shop and tasted Jacob's liquor.
"Hmm? What kind of liquor is this?"
"Feels a little like Japanese liquor, doesn't it?"
People who at first had tilted their heads in confusion gradually grew used to The One as they paired it with food.
"The aroma rises subtly, I like that."
"Clean. Sometimes you get distilled spirits where the aroma's just way over the top, you know? This one isn't like that at all. Pretty good."
"Damn it, this stuff just keeps going down."
People were starting to take to something new, and Jacob's frozen-stiff expression gradually melted.
"Reaction's not bad."
I clapped Jacob on his shoulder, way up there above me, and he gave his nose a quick rub, struggling to keep his excitement in check. He'd been thinking that just breaking even in the first year would be a stroke of luck, so it was only natural for his heart to be pounding now that the response wasn't bad.
A few days later, I got a call from Jacob first thing in the morning.
"Brian! Come down to the distillery today!"
"Why? What's going on?"
"You told me to send samples to distributors, right? Well, today a distributor said they're coming to meet me!"
"Yeah? Really? That's great."
Unlike a winery, a distillery selling distilled spirits had to choose a distributor because of the Three-Tier System linking producer, broker, and consumer.
But that wasn't the surprising part.
"That's not it... I got contacted by two of them!"
"Huh?"
"Two distributors got in touch saying they want to distribute our One!"
That was when I finally understood why Jacob was so worked up.
"You've gotta help me. I need to figure out which one to pick."
"Got it. I'll head over."
Two distributors going after Jacob's liquor. The signs were good right out of the gate.
*****
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