Ruby Quartz (1)
Jacob came striding up from the farm entrance almost at a run and waved the moment he spotted me stepping out of the winery.
"Brian!"
"Hey..."
"The whole valley's going nuts! Every one of my classmates can't talk about anything but Redwood!"
Just as Jacob's excited babble suggested, all of Napa Valley had fixed its gaze on the Redwood brand. Warren Winiarski—practically an elder statesman of the valley—had joined the team, and less than a year later they had released a cult-level wine priced at four hundred fifty dollars a bottle. It was only natural that the students at UC Davis were in an uproar.
"Uh..."
"What's with that reaction? You don't look happy at all!"
"I am happy... I just did all my cheering at the tasting day."
"Unbelievable... that's all you can manage?"
Jacob shook his head in disbelief, then rubbed his palms together with sudden eagerness.
"The brandy I'm supposed to learn about today—is it really something Warren Winiarski invented himself?"
He stood nearly six-foot-three, built like a mountain, yet he couldn't hide how thrilled he was. For all his bandit-like bulk, there was something endearing about him.
"That's what I told you. How's the business?"
"Don't even start. I've been out of my mind since September with harvest. Picking, filling orders... then the laborers kicked up a storm demanding higher wages and I couldn't get any work done for days."
"Simple wage push, or are the big wineries poaching your people?"
"Both. The big farm next door started paying a higher hourly rate and the kids' eyes rolled back in their heads. A small operation like mine doesn't stand a chance. Orders are heavy, though, so I just raised the pay and put them back to work. The boss who caved to labor... that's me."
Jacob's shoulders slumped as he answered.
"No serious damage, though?"
"Nah. Orders are solid... still, it doesn't feel great getting pushed around by the workforce."
"Well, nothing we can do about that. Let's make it back with a high-end brandy this time."
"Having a thirty-percent major shareholder open the path for me like this is honestly moving."
We went inside the winery and I introduced Jacob to Warren. The moment Jacob spotted Warren Winiarski he went wide-eyed and bowed at a perfect ninety degrees.
"Sir! Allow me to greet you properly again! I'm Jacob, from Sacramento!"
Warren looked him up and down over the rims of the glasses perched on his nose, the same exacting gaze he used when checking the sugar level of a grape cluster.
"So you're the one who wants to inherit my secret weapon?"
"Yes, sir! Teach me anything—I'll bury my bones here if I have to!"
"Hmph. Bury your bones in the cemetery. Around here, keep your head clear. Distilled spirits are a hundred times more temperamental than wine."
Warren's prickly welcome made Jacob swallow hard. I gave him a push between the shoulder blades and steered him straight into the aging room, then into the lab where the custom-built still sat waiting. Sentimental reunions could end right there.
"Jacob, I saw Golden Grain House's latest quarterly sales report. The vodka and soju lines are stable, but the average unit price is low, so operating margins have stalled. The old man just developed a new brandy method, and I thought it could be a perfect fit for your distillery."
I spoke while powering up the equipment. Seeing the sudden seriousness in my eyes, Jacob straightened his posture.
"I know. That's why I need this even more."
At that moment Warren adjusted a valve and began the real lecture.
"Listen carefully. Brandy is the work of concentrating the soul of wine. Most brandy, though, is boiled hard over open fire. The delicate aromas the grapes possess—their very soul—burn up and die in that heat."
He pointed at the vacuum gauge on the monitor.
"The key is pressure. I've dropped the system pressure below eighty Torr. Create a vacuum like that and the alcohol starts boiling around thirty-five degrees Celsius. Distillation happens at a temperature lower than body heat."
"Thirty-five degrees? Alcohol separates at that temperature?"
Jacob asked, stunned. Warren flipped through the data sheets without changing expression.
"That's right. You have to hold that temperature so the volatile esters from the grape skins settle between the alcohol molecules without being destroyed. Don't rely on feel. The second you miss the critical threshold where the aroma compounds separate, what you're making isn't luxury brandy—it's just high-proof industrial alcohol."
Warren carefully collected a vial of the clear distillate and held it under Jacob's nose.
"Smell it."
Jacob drew a cautious breath. His eyes went wide in an instant.
"Whoa... this isn't just fruit. It's like cherry blossoms opening, and then something sharp and clean at the finish... wow...!"
"That is the essence of low-temperature distillation. An aroma made possible only because we completely blocked any heat-driven oxidation."
Warren had Jacob work the valves himself while teaching the precise cuts of the run—when to discard the heads, when to take the hearts, and the craftsman's sense for filtering the impurities that linger in the tails. Jacob scribbled down every seasoned piece of advice and cross-checked the numbers on my monitor.
"Brian, you're something else. You've logged every single degree where the aroma flips."
"Agronomy is the science of statistics and probability. Leaving things to chance is what gamblers do. We create reproducible miracles."
The lesson stretched on for hours. Jacob poured sweat yet never took his eyes off Warren's hands. For him, this technique was the key that would transform Golden Grain House from an ordinary soju plant into America's finest premium distillery.
Warren carefully poured liquid from a vial into a tasting glass. What swirled inside was nothing like the cloudy amber of ordinary brandy—a clear, vivid brown shot through with deep ruby light.
"Wow, the color is pure art. But it just came off the still—how is it already brown? Doesn't it need oak barrels for that?"
Warren's mouth curved in a small smile at Jacob's question.
"If we were going to put it in oak, why would we have gone to all this trouble to capture cherry aroma with low-temperature distillation? The moment those strong vanilla, smoky, and leather notes from the wood settle in, the delicate cherry would vanish without a trace."
"Now that you mention it... to keep that incredible cherry, you really can't touch oak. But then how did it get this color without barrels?"
I answered in Warren's place.
"Low-temperature pigment extraction. After distillation we isolate the anthocyanins and key flavor compounds from the leftover cherry skins, then recombine them with the cleanest hearts in the optimal ratio."
"Ah..."
Warren chuckled and swirled the glass.
"Kid, brown brandy flavored with wood chips is everywhere. This is the soul of the cherry itself, sealed in a bottle. Taste it. It'll rewrite whatever definition of brandy you've been carrying around."
Jacob brought the glass to his lips. After the hit of alcohol above forty percent swept down his throat, instead of oak's astringent weight a brilliant fragrance—like swallowing an entire cherry orchard whole—flooded his sinuses.
"My God... this is a revolution. The color's so deep, yet the taste is impossibly fresh! What's it called?"
At Jacob's question Warren and I looked at each other.
"Why are you looking at me?"
"I figured the old man already had a name ready."
"We're not selling this here, so I didn't bother thinking of one. And I wasn't sure that kid would even listen to me."
Warren pointed at Jacob, who nearly jumped out of his skin.
"What are you talking about? Of course I'll follow your lead!"
"Anyway, I've got nothing. You?"
"Hmm... I have one."
"What is it?"
"Ruby Quartz."
"Oho~ Ruby quartz..."
Warren stroked his chin, nodding as if it pleased him. Jacob smiled as well.
"Not bad. Simple, and it still catches that deep yet bright brown the cherries have."
I added a detail for Warren.
"I haven't thought about the bottle design yet, but I want the label to carry the line Crafted by Warren Winiarski so everyone knows it's the brandy you made."
"Good, good."
He nodded with even greater satisfaction.
Having the name of the star of the Judgment of Paris—Warren Winiarski—engraved on a spirit rather than a wine was no different from dropping a nuclear bomb on the industry. How would the market receive it?
Warren, already anticipating that feverish reception, wore an expression full of anticipation.
The Mondavi mansion in Oakville, emblem of Napa Valley, lay under an unaccustomed heavy silence. Robert Mondavi, body dependent on a wheelchair, had been gazing out at the vineyards beyond the window; now he slowly turned his head. Late 2007. The flesh of the master who had built Napa Valley's empire was failing, yet his eyes still burned with fierce light.
His children stood before him, tense. Eldest son Michael, who ran Michael Mondavi Family Estate; Timothy of Continuum Estate; and daughter Marcia... the real power brokers of Napa had gathered at the old patriarch's summons.
In the center of the table sat a bottle of the hottest wine in Napa Valley right now—Astra Vale.
His strength largely spent, Robert lifted the glass with a trembling hand and smelled it. Then, very slowly, he took the liquid into his mouth. His children held their breath, hoping their father would rebuke this upstart winery's provocation. But the master's voice that finally broke the silence crushed their expectations without mercy.
"Warren said he was going there to learn. Now I understand why. While we stood still, a new current has begun to lead Napa."
Michael could not hide his dismay at the unexpected praise.
"Father, what are you saying? Isn't that going too far, no matter what?"
Robert fixed his eldest with a cold stare.
"You're still hiding behind the Mondavi name, peddling the past. The wines that kept advancing in Napa Valley stopped progressing at some point. And while you rested on your laurels, this young man from the East has already surpassed you."
Robert forced out a cough and continued.
"Watch the San Francisco competition closely. That may be the place where the kingdom you built begins to fall."
While the children exchanged only uncertain glances, granddaughter Emily Mondavi, who had been quietly observing everything from a corner of the room, stepped forward. She was said to have inherited more of her grandfather's passion and sharp tongue than anyone. Robert handed her the glass and murmured low.
"Emily, can you see it? The ambition sealed inside this wine?"
Emily took the glass without a word. Following her grandfather's gaze, she held Astra Vale to the light.
In truth, a good number of the younger generation from Napa's major families had already tasted Astra Vale, and Emily was among them. For her, the shock of Quiet Hill had already been intense; the fact that a wine capable of becoming a new landmark of Napa Valley had emerged from Redwood filled her with something close to fear.
"Grandfather is right. This isn't simply a delicious wine."
She already understood without any further explanation from him. What the man named Brian Choi had thrown into Napa Valley was not merely a challenge—it was the blueprint for a new era.
"Think, and analyze again. How a Cabernet like this came out of Redwood's terroir. If you can't discover that, Continuum will never make a better wine for the rest of its life."
Mondavi's words struck at the most fundamental issue behind Astra Vale's birth. Everyone was fixated on its unique blend; almost no one was paying attention to the quality of the Cabernet Sauvignon that formed its core.
"I will."
Emily, who resembled her grandfather most, nodded with a resolute face. She believed the instruction that carried the wisdom of a grandfather whose time was growing short might become the very clue that would let Continuum take its next leap.