Eye of the Storm (3)
William and Richard emerged from Golden Grain Soju House after an unexpected rejection, their faces so rigidly set that no one dared approach them.
Their respective aides opened the doors of the waiting sedans, yet the two men halted short of the cars. William Harlan rested a hand on the Bentley’s door, adjusted his glasses, and spoke toward the smirking Richard Sands.
“We raced all the way from New York only to leave empty-handed. In the end, neither your glittering distribution network shares nor Wall Street’s numbers could pierce the single legal net that twenty-something brat cast, Richard.”
William’s voice carried less the bitterness of defeat than open contempt for Richard. Richard snorted and roughly straightened the cuff of his tailored suit.
“Oh, William. You look rather more shaken by the fact that you couldn’t get your hands on Redwood’s cash cow. Honor and permanence… I nearly retched trying to keep it down back there…”
Then Richard let go of the car door, took a step closer to William, and continued.
“Things are about to get interesting, aren’t they? Until now I’ve simply bought the wineries or the recipes that looked promising. But Redwood calculated that predators like you and me would show up, and they built their defenses in advance. Anyone who can lay down a poison pill that refined in Napa Valley is going to be one hell of a headache for you, isn’t he?”
William’s brow twitched. Richard’s words had struck his sore spot with surgical precision.
To Richard Sands, wine was merely one of the many businesses he consumed. For William it was different. On the surface, wine was the very enterprise that defined William Harlan.
“Don’t delude yourself. I came here to control this liquor. You came only to copy it. The result, however, is the same.”
“No, no… The failed acquisition is only the surface phenomenon. Everyone wants money. If money doesn’t work, it simply means there wasn’t enough of it. You may not understand that, but I do.”
Richard’s taunting tone as he climbed into his car made William’s face harden. The implication was clear: if they could not acquire Golden Grain Soju House, they could simply acquire Redwood itself.
William knew better than anyone that words from Richard Sands’s mouth were never empty bluster.
“Money-grubbing worm…”
Thoroughly soured, William got into his own car. Richard’s words circled inside his head the entire drive home.
The wind stirred by Ruby Quartz—brandy, not wine—had turned Napa Valley into the eye of a storm. Rumors that began in San Francisco bars crossed the continent and slammed into Wall Street in New York; now that fire had returned to its origin at Redwood and was raging as a full-blown tempest.
Naturally, the entrance to Redwood Winery was packed with press vehicles from early morning. Authoritative media outlets had occupied the place en masse to broadcast Napa Valley news to the world.
From the senior editor of Wine Spectator to columnists for The Wine Advocate—figures who rarely showed their faces in the field—their goal was singular.
To pry open the mouth of Warren Winiarski, the legend who had shaken Napa once again thirty years after the Judgment of Paris.
“Warren! Just one comment, please! The prevailing view is that Ruby Quartz represents Warren Winiarski’s ‘alchemical sublimation of wine.’ What’s your take?”
James, the veteran reporter from Wine Spectator, pursued Warren relentlessly despite the refused interview. His strategy was tenacious: he did not simply ask about the quality of the spirit but flattered Warren’s greatness, probing the man’s pride.
“You astonished the world with Cabernet Sauvignon at Stag’s Leap. Why choose brandy at this moment? Is this a challenge to the existing Cognac order?”
Warren walked on in silence, the collar of his worn coat turned up, then stopped at the entrance to the winery. He cast a chill gaze through the deep furrows of his face at the camera flashes and recorders surrounding him.
“Your questions are terribly old-fashioned.”
At Warren’s quiet remark, the noisy scene fell as silent as if cold water had been thrown over it.
“Do you think I’ll be pleased if you exalt me with that embarrassing word ‘alchemy’? Moreover, Ruby Quartz is no toy made to challenge anyone. I simply found a spark of inspiration here and created it. That is all.”
“So you’re saying Redwood itself gave you that inspiration… Did you join Redwood for that very reason?”
When the reporter seized on the point, Warren offered a cold smile.
“I believe I already explained why I came to Redwood in a previous interview. If you want to know more, go bother Brian instead. I’m too old to play along with your lightweight praise. And if you write about Ruby Quartz, do not slap on some childish headline like ‘Return of the Legend.’ Oh, and for the record, I did not write the promotional copy for Ruby Quartz either.”
Warren shut the door firmly and disappeared inside. The reporters looked crestfallen, yet the name Brian that Warren had tossed out set them hunting for me with renewed fervor. By then I had already fled to the mud fields of Coombsville the moment I heard the press was descending.
I returned to Redwood Winery only in the late afternoon, after the reporters’ uproar had swept through like a storm and passed.
I was staring blankly at the spectacle of the sunset gilding the ridges of Napa Valley when I noticed a man walking slowly up from the foot of the hill.
“Hm?”
I tilted my head at a sight rarely seen in Napa Valley. An old canvas bag slung over one shoulder, canvas trousers frayed at the knees—his appearance was far removed from the typical tourist or industry figure who visited Napa.
His face was covered with several days’ growth of graying stubble, and deep fatigue and solitude settled in the hollows of his eyes. A white man who looked to be in his mid-forties. He lifted his gaze toward the winery building yet did not spare even a glance for the Astra Vale promotional banner.
Warren, just emerging from the aging cellar, was approaching me when he spotted the man as well. Warren instinctively recognized that this was no ordinary sightseer.
“If you’re press, business hours are over. Head on back.”
The man stopped and looked at Warren. His eyes were hazy, yet a strange yearning lived inside them.
“…I’m not a reporter.”
A rough, cracked voice. The man drew a crumpled sheet of paper from his coat and held it out. It was not a leaflet for Echelon or Astra Vale, but a copy of the label for Quiet Hill, which had only recently been released and was selling briskly.
“I’ve come to meet the person who made this wine. Warren… did you make this?”
“Hardly. You don’t seem to know when I actually joined this place.”
The man nodded, then asked,
“Then do you know the man who made this wine?”
Warren’s curiosity was piqued. Until midday he had been thoroughly annoyed by people prying into his own affairs, yet the man before him showed not the slightest interest in Warren standing right there and was instead curious only about the maker of Quiet Hill.
“Looking for the person who made Quiet Hill… That wine must have made quite an impression on you.”
“Of course. Absolutely.”
The man gave a self-deprecating smile and continued.
“I was curious. Curious how he drew out the Pinot Noir from Grendel Hill in the Russian River Valley.”
Both Warren and I recognized the man’s identity from that short sentence. A middle-aged man inquiring about Grendel Hill in the Russian River Valley.
I asked carefully,
“Would you happen to be… Daniel?”
The man’s shoulders trembled faintly. He turned his head and looked at me.
“How do you know me?”
“I know. The old man has missed you terribly.”
He was Daniel Grendel. The rightful heir of Grendel Hill who had fled to France as if driven out of Harrington Winery under Mark Harrington’s shouting. After more than ten years of silence, the man who had drifted like a ghost had returned to Napa.
“You know my father well?”
“…A little. I persuaded him myself to secure the grape contract.”
“Then you are…?”
“That’s right. I made Quiet Hill. Forgive the late introduction—Brian Choi.”
When I extended my hand, he fumbled awkwardly with his dirt-stained fingers. I paid it no mind and clasped his hand firmly.
“I’m glad you’ve arrived in good health. The old man will be overjoyed. Did you stop by Grendel Hill first…?”
I trailed off. Judging by his appearance—filth practically dripping from him—he did not look as though he had visited Grendel Hill at all.
Which meant he had come to Redwood first rather than to the Grendel Hill where his father waited… Finding it odd, I tilted my head and asked,
“It seems not. Is there a reason you came to Redwood first?”
He lowered his head, bit his lip, hesitated a moment, then spoke.
“I drank this wine in a tucked-away bistro in Paris. At first I downed the glass in anger simply because the name of my home soil was on it. I thought some Napa brat had taken my father’s grapes just to ride the name.”
Moisture slowly gathered in Daniel’s eyes.
“But the moment I took a single sip, I wasn’t in a Paris restaurant anymore. I was standing on that cool ridge of fog-wrapped Grendel Hill. How, with the very grapes from our farm that Harrington had coveted so fiercely, did he draw out something so completely different from their pretentious Noctis Ridge… this quiet yet complex fragrance? I’d never tasted a Pinot Noir whose finish lingered so long.”
He was genuinely curious, yet it was not a question that demanded an answer. I simply offered an awkward smile, and he continued with a hollow expression.
“My father spent his whole life tending that vineyard, yet because of me the family’s name was dragged through the mud. Even with such fine grapes he never gained a better reputation… After tasting Quiet Hill and hearing it had taken Double Gold, I ended up coming all the way here. I wanted to pay my respects to the man who crushed that damned Harrington—who stole my research—right back onto Grendel Hill. Thank you. Truly…”
“When Elias gave me the grapes, he asked me for only one promise: that I must beat Harrington Winery’s Harrington Noctis Ridge Pinot Noir. And I did.”
At my smile he broke into the brightest smile I had yet seen from him.
“I wanted to thank you first, before I saw my father. It felt like something I had to do. If I hadn’t stopped at Redwood first, he would have said the same thing—that a man ought to offer his thanks there before anything else.”
“Please give him my regards when you go. I ought to have visited after the award, but I’ve been too busy. I’m always swamped, you see. Still… you can’t exactly walk there…”
However much we spoke of Grendel Hill as if it were the neighboring farm, and however much Sonoma was the next town over from Napa, it was never a distance one walked. Even by car it took more than an hour.
“So… any chance you could lend me a little money?”
An unexpected turn. But I was not so short of cash that I could not get Daniel to Grendel Hill in Sonoma.
“…Of course.”
“Don’t get the wrong idea. Looking like this… like a beggar… isn’t because I’m broke. Ragged as I am, I’ve been working as sous-winemaker at Domaine Leroy in France until now. But while waiting for the Napa connection at JFK in New York, my bag—wallet, passport, credit cards and all—was stolen clean. Coming back to America after so long, I was so excited I completely lost my head.”
“Then how did you make it this far…?”
“I was standing there dumbfounded when a single twenty-dollar bill turned up in my pocket by pure luck. With that I begged the Greyhound driver on the San Francisco run and rode in the luggage bay.”
“…Impressive. Well, since it’s come to this, why don’t we go together?”
I decided to drive him to Sonoma—partly to see Elias’s face after so long, and partly to show off the Double Gold.
“I’d be grateful if you would.”
Daniel Grendel scratched his greasy hair and gave an embarrassed smile.