Winter Preparations (1)
The front courtyard of Redwood Winery was already humming with life from the first light of morning, as fierce and bright as the California sun itself. The quiet, peaceful hillside had transformed overnight into a sprawling open-air banquet hall.
Two truckloads of industrial barbecue grills—where Dad had managed to get them from, no one knew—were already smoking thick cuts of brisket and ribs, the air heavy with woodsmoke and fat. Mom and the winery staff moved between tables draped in white linen, setting out bottles of Redwood’s signatures: the elegant Sylphid, the reliable Echelon, and yesterday’s triumph, Astra Vale.
Mom had argued that Astra Vale was far too expensive and they should put out only three bottles. Dad refused. Today’s glory belonged to Astra Vale; you didn’t leave the star of the show off the stage. He brought out an entire case.
Mom and I both knew the real reason: Dad simply wanted an excuse to drink as much Astra Vale as he liked. It was a happy day. We let it slide.
“Brian! You absolute bastard!”
A pickup truck came tearing up the drive in a cloud of dust. Armando jumped out before the door had even finished swinging shut and crushed me in a bone-deep hug. The smell of good soil clung to his clothes all the way from Alexander Valley.
“Best of Show! Are you kidding me? Those San Francisco Chronicle judges—the pickiest bastards on the planet—just got on their knees for you. Unreal!”
Oddly enough, Armando’s congratulations felt the best of all.
“Don’t overdo it, Armando. You find a girlfriend while I wasn’t looking?”
“Don’t even start. So many girls hanging off me I had to start thinning the herd.”
“……”
“You don’t believe me, do you? It’s true.”
He stepped aside with a flourish. A little ways behind him stood a cute East Asian girl in a blue dress, looking faintly embarrassed. She looked young enough to be a freshman.
I tilted my head toward Armando and kept my voice low.
“What the hell? She’s from our school?”
“Yep. Freshman this year.”
Armando’s grin was climbing toward the sky. I gave him a look of pure disbelief, then asked quietly,
“Where’s she from?”
“Vietnamese. Pretty, right?”
Honestly, she was so cute it was almost irritating to think of her as Armando’s girlfriend.
“She’s pretty, but… can she even talk to you?”
“Her English is fine. Immigrated five years ago, she says.”
“So while I was grinding myself into dust you were out here living a teen rom-com.”
“Come on. You’re living the dream with Chloe. Anyway, her real name’s a mouthful even for me. American name’s Angela. Angela, come here. This is my proudest friend—Brian.”
Angela stepped forward shyly and gave a little wave. I waved back with an awkward smile and pointed toward the party.
“Go have fun.”
“Thank you.”
She latched onto Armando’s arm and pulled him ahead. He followed, glancing back over his shoulder with a smug little smile that somehow made me want to look anywhere else. Then, far down the drive, I saw someone else approaching and a smile spread across my face without permission.
Chloe walked toward me in a yellow sundress, Napa sunlight pouring over her. She ignored every staring eye, threw her arms around me, and left a deep kiss on my cheek.
“Congratulations, Brian. When I saw the news last night I screamed so loud the workers at the pear orchard thought there’d been an earthquake in Napa.”
Her eyes were full of pride—pride in me. I silently canceled the earlier thought about Armando’s congratulations being the best. I slipped an arm around her tiny waist.
“Thank you. It’s because of you.”
She couldn’t hold back any longer and kissed me properly. We shared a short, private moment right there among the vines until Fredrick and Brandon came up the path behind her and forced us to stop.
“That’s enough, you two.”
“Tch. Just get married already…”
Fredrick scowled. Amelia looked delighted, as if she were watching a romantic movie. Brandon turned his head away like the sight personally offended him.
“Hahaha… Please, come on up.”
Once Chloe’s family had gone ahead, Christopher arrived at the party ground. He threw his arms wide, face flushed with excitement.
“Brian, your market value is rising faster than Napa land prices. Right this second, hedge-fund managers in New York are chewing out their assistants trying to get even one bottle of Astra Vale. Do you know who called me on the way here?”
“Who…?”
“Viktor Karlov himself. The man who ordered a hundred cases on the spot. He told me this is the first wine investment he’s ever seen pay off this big this fast.”
“Ah… yeah, that tracks.”
Viktor had dropped over half a million dollars that day without blinking. Less than a month later the numbers already said he’d more than doubled his money on paper. A man like him would never flip the bottles, of course, but the thought of him stockpiling an unobtainable wine just so he could show off one bottle at a time made his joy easy to imagine.
“Everyone else who bought big that day is probably losing their minds with happiness too. They’re all famous rich men—none of them will dump bottles at auction—so supply control shouldn’t be too hard.”
“I’ll trust you on that. Let’s go up.”
Christopher wasn’t the only guest. Neighboring winery owners and UC Davis students had come as well. With Warren—Napa Valley’s living symbol—on the guest list, a fair number of heavy hitters had turned up. And the simple fact that you could drink Redwood wine without limit was reason enough for anyone to attend.
The party hit its peak in minutes. Champagne foam from one of Dad’s bottles arced into the air; Redwood staff and neighboring farmers clinked glasses and roared.
At the height of the celebration Jacob appeared, face flushed from wine. Instead of his usual work apron he wore a surprisingly sharp jacket, but the large leather satchel in his hands looked as carefully guarded as a treasure chest.
“I’ve got something to show you.”
“Yeah?”
“The prototype of Ruby Quartz—the one the old man designed—is ready.”
Jacob’s booming voice turned every head. He opened the satchel and lifted out a bottle. Someone gasped. What sat on the table was nothing like the rough glass we usually saw. A crystal decanter, cut with exquisite precision, caught the hard California light and shattered it into ten thousand glittering shards.
What held every eye even tighter, though, was the liquid inside. It wasn’t the cloudy amber of ordinary brandy. Warren’s low-temperature pigment-extraction method had created a clear, bottomless ruby-brown that seemed to hold light within itself.
“I kept the label as restrained as you wanted. The old man’s name is the brand, after all.”
The label was matte black—deep, lightless black. Against the rough paper, only sharp gold-foil typography stood out.
Warren set his cane aside and reached out slowly. The weathered fingertips of a man who had spent a lifetime making only wine traced the smooth crystal of the weapon he had designed.
“Beautiful. A color and a presence wine itself can never achieve.”
At the praise, Jacob’s face lit up. He opened the stopper. With a soft, dignified pop, alcohol well over 80 proof bloomed into the air, releasing a fragrance that had been locked inside.
The atmosphere of the party shifted at once. Fresh cherry flesh, the faint bitter note of the pits, and bright esters that no oak smoke could bury rolled over the crowd like a wave. Christopher, standing nearby, sniffed hard and looked stunned.
“This is brandy? How is the aroma this deep…?”
“Warren designed every step.”
I added the comment from the side. Warren lifted the glass Jacob had poured, nosed it, then took a slow sip. His eyes closed. The entire gathering held its breath for the master’s verdict.
Instead he simply said,
“Not bad.”
The understatement left everyone blinking. Fredrick, who had never met a drink he could refuse, stepped forward first and filled an empty glass. He snatched it up as if someone might steal it, tossed it back, and his eyes went wide.
“Whoa! Hahaha! This… this is something else. Jacob, you’re selling this out of your distillery?”
“Yes.”
“You’re insane. One more—”
Before Fredrick could finish, the bottle was already in my father’s hand. A small crowd of people who wanted a taste closed in at once.
Realizing he was already late, Fredrick pulled Jacob aside.
“How many can you spare me?”
“Pardon?”
“Ruby Quartz.”
The blunt request for allocation caught Jacob off guard, but this was Chloe’s father—not some stranger. For a young man who had lost his own father, a friend’s father was almost a father himself. He couldn’t refuse.
“I’ll set aside one case for you.”
“How many bottles is that?”
“It’s premium brandy, so we decided on six bottles per case.”
“Yeah? What’s the price?”
“……”
“Don’t even think about giving it away free. You’re Chloe’s friend, but you and I are still businessmen.”
“…Understood. Thirty-six hundred dollars.”
Fredrick had expected to pay whatever it cost, but six hundred a bottle still made him blink—not because the number hurt, but because the businessman in him was already calculating how much money Jacob was about to make.
“Yeah… for something this good, six hundred isn’t too much. Since you’re setting some aside anyway, any chance of three cases…?”
“I’ll take five.”
Dad cut in again, quick as a cat. The liquid already swirling in his glass made it clear he’d had at least one pour.
I shook my head and turned away. The two men having the best day of their lives had just locked onto the same target. No one was going to stop them now.
“Brian! This is seriously incredible!”
Chloe was halfway through a glass of Astra Vale herself, eyes already half-closed. Wine isn’t weak; if it tastes good you keep sipping until the world tilts.
I decided it was safer to get her out before anything happened. I guided her into the winery office and laid her on the sofa.
“I want to drink more…”
“Rest a little. The party’s long. You can enjoy it later.”
I left her there quietly and stepped back outside. Warren was waiting. Behind him rose the laughter of the guests and Dad’s booming toasts. Warren planted his cane and came to my side.
“I haven’t been to a party this good in a long time. No one watching their step, no invisible jockeying for position. Just pure celebration and enjoyment. Feels damn fine.”
“Glad to hear it.”
He studied my face for a moment.
“Something on your mind? You look like you’re carrying a lot of thoughts.”
“A few things, yeah.”
“Harlan?”
“No. What can they even do? All the important knowledge is in my head. It’s more that I keep thinking about Armando’s place—still stuck at the vinegar stage—and what I might do for him.”
“Oh… thinking of your friends that hard. Even if you take a cut of the profits, it isn’t easy.”
“Even close friends drift apart if the gap gets too wide. I don’t want that. And Armando’s solid. He’ll make a good winemaker. I just want to build a wine that fits him. Something like that.”
“…… A wine that suits the winemaker… not a simple problem. But it sounds fun too. You’d have to know the character of his vineyard inside out, find the right blends. It’s basically creating a whole new winery. Strangely, when it’s you saying it, it doesn’t feel impossible.”
“For now it’s only a thought. First I have to get ready for the winter that’s already on the doorstep.”
Every wine I had prepared was finally released. The stretch had been frantic and exhausting, yet my chest was full of a satisfaction even larger than the work.