Alpine pasture

Chapter 265 It's All Sand

Stayed in a cabin in the forest for one night. In the morning, five people drove to the Knight Valley in California to see the vineyards. Ju An, who is blind to wine, knows that there is a wine produced in Napa Valley in California, USA. Famous, as for Knight Valley, I have never heard of it. Myers did literacy for Ju An and Wang Fan along the way. Only then did I know that there is only a St. Helens road between this valley and the famous Napa Valley grape-growing area. The Na Mountain Range is located in Sonoma County, California. As soon as you enter the mountain pass, you can see that there are vineyards all around. Unlike Ju An’s impression, our domestic grapes are all grown on the shelves. Here The grape trellises are quite special, they are all like wooden pillars, and there are some mesh ropes or steel wires in the middle of the pillars, not like grape trellises, but a bit like tennis nets, neatly arranged in rows Arranged, there are several huge fans everywhere in the vineyard, I don’t know what they are used for, except for a few trees by the roadside, the rest are vineyards, and there is a farm at a distance The style of buildings, listening to Miles introduce these are breweries one by one.Five people drove for more than 20 minutes and then climbed up half a small hill to their destination, the Black Feather Eagle Vineyard in Knight Valley.

As soon as a few people got out of the car at the door, they saw a five- to sixty-year-old white man wearing a wide-brimmed hat with a bit of Mexican style behind him and two younger people dressed as farmers coming over to greet the five people.

The old man stretched out his hand when he saw Ju An got out of the car: "You are, Mike, Mr. Miles. Hello, I am the owner of the vineyard, and my name is William."

After shaking hands with this William one by one, William took Ju An and five people into the house to see the equipment of the winery. As soon as Ju An entered the winery with William, he was surrounded by bright lights. It is completely different from what Ju An imagined. The machines in this factory are very well maintained and wiped very clean. There is no dust after touching them. William walked While introducing to a few people what these machines are used for, such as juicing, fermentation, and even a few people in a room dedicated to making that kind of wine barrels, saying that the oak imported from France has a professional the cooper, but the room is deserted now.

After visiting the wine-making workshop, William took a few people to visit the wine cellar of the winery. After Ju An walked down, he found that the wine cellar was an underground building. It is nearly three meters high, and it is estimated to be at least a few hundred square meters, but now it is empty, except for a dozen or so oak barrels on the shelves on both sides, it is basically a bare shelf. William walked and said: " This wine cellar has been built for more than 60 years. After I took over, I was busy cultivating new frost-resistant Cabernet Sauvignon, but the wine produced by the new Cabernet Sauvignon was not very good, and most of the wine cellar was empty. Now I already have some clues, and my new Cabernet Sauvignon will be successfully improved next year in no time at the latest, and oak barrels will be piled up here in the future.”

Miles followed William and said: "We have seen your conditions, and we will give you another three years, up to three years. If the new Cabernet Sauvignon is not good enough, we will switch to Cabernet Sauvignon. Xia Sauvignon, we hope you can understand when the time comes."

After listening to Miles' words, William paused for a moment and then nodded. Ju An saw that the old man's face showed reluctance. Ju An also heard a detailed introduction about this William last night. A very An excellent winemaker made a lot of money at the beginning, and finally bought the Black Feather Eagle Vineyard by himself. It must be the end of a wife and children. Sometimes this person can't be too stubborn. If he is too stubborn, he will easily get into a dead end. But again, can a person who is not stubborn become a famous winemaker in Napa Valley in his early thirties? .It is true that success and failure are also brewing.

What Miles said was not polite at all, because he had already figured out the old man's heart, and he went to the extreme. Ju An's group was his last hope. If Ju An bought it, he could let him go again After cultivating grapes for three years, when the bank loan expires, the bank will directly auction off the vineyard and drive the old man out of here without mercy.

After looking at the wine cellar, William took five people to look at the grape plantation. It is now more than July, and there are already a lot of grapes hanging on the grape racks. Most of them are blue, and a few of them are starting to turn purple. Yes, the bunches of grape knots on the whole shelf are quite gratifying.

Ju An casually picked a purple grape and put it in his mouth. After biting it, he spit it out from his mouth quickly. Good guy, it's not only sour but also bitter. A mouthful of sour breath directly penetrated the spine and rushed into the brain. I have never eaten such an unpalatable grape in my life.

Seeing Ju An's appearance, Miles and Mike Wang Fan also picked one and put it in their mouths, and immediately spit it out. Mike immediately took out a handkerchief and wiped his tongue twice.

Ju An shook his head and looked at the [-]-odd hectares of grapes. They looked pretty good, but they tasted worse than bitter melon.

After watching the actions of the crowd, William quickly explained: "The grapes are not yet ripe, and they will be much better when they are fully ripe."

After hearing this, Ju An slandered: No wonder the wine produced is unpalatable. Even if the grapes are ripe, the grapes are not so delicious. The wine produced is probably the same as bitter melon after being squeezed. smell.

Looking around the vineyard, Ju An pointed to the big fans on another vineyard and asked, "I saw these fans in every vineyard along the way, why don't you have them in your vineyard?"

After hearing this, William explained: "That is used to resist frost. California is close to the sea, and the fog in the valley at night is relatively thick. In the morning, it is easy to frost. Frost will cause a large decrease in grape production, so the fields are prepared. This kind of fan is used to blow away the frost, but it is useless in this vineyard because the new Cabernet Sauvignon I cultivate is a frost-resistant variety and does not need fans.”

After hearing William's explanation, Ju'an realized that the big fans erected in the ground were used to blow away the water vapor. The ground looks much better without these big fans.

Referring to the bitter grapes he cultivated, William also introduced: "All the vineyards in California have these fans, except mine, and there are no other French vineyards, but the French vineyard owners are richer, they directly hired planes to do the work."

Ju An nodded, if it weren't for the high price of French wine, the grapes are picked and fried for juice, then poured into a barrel for a while, and a bottle is worth tens of dollars, of course it can be used to fly Well, these ordinary wines in the United States are only about ten dollars, so of course you can’t afford them.

William then pointed to the vineyard and introduced it to Ju An: "The more than 30 hectares of the vineyard are all on this hillside, and not far from there is the famous Petermark Winery. The sunshine here is very full. When the ocean fog drifts in and it is very cool, this climate is very conducive to the perfect ripeness of the grapes. The entire hillside is roughly [-] degrees, and the main soil is sandstone, volcanic ash, etc., regardless of the geographical environment or The natural environment is very good, the soil layer is very thick, but the water seepage is good, so the grapes produced have a slightly longer growth period, but the fruit is rich."

After hearing this, Ju An grabbed a handful of soil from the ground and twisted it in his hands. It was good that he didn’t twist it. After twisting, he grabbed two stones in one handful, and he didn’t feel the warmth of soil at all. , Feelings, this place is sand and gravel. Speaking of it, it is a rocky hillside. This guy has 33 hectares of 600 million. I heard someone from William introduce that the sand and gravel have good water permeability, which is good for grape growth.

I visited the entire vineyard, and finally took five people from Ju An to a big deep well to have a look, and then introduced: "All the irrigation water for the vineyard comes from this deep well, and there is also a deep well in Peter Mike Winery. Deep wells, the grapes irrigated with water from these wells have a very unique taste of mineral gas."

Looking at the big well, Ju An nodded. To be honest, after looking at it for a long time, Ju An was the most satisfied with this well. The space water was directly thrown into this well, and all problems were not solved.

After listening to William's introduction, Miles took Ju'an and Mike Wang Vanion aside to discuss it, and Miles asked Ju'an: "Ann, what do you think?".

Ju An scratched his head and said, "Why does this land make me feel a bit disadvantaged? The land full of sand and rocks is more expensive than the land on my ranch."

Mike said with a smile: "Vineyards are basically this kind of land. The location of the land here is not bad, better than the few vineyards in our family."

Wang Fan then said: "It's a pity that there is no wine in the wine cellar. If there is wine, let's get a bottle and go back to taste it. But why do you two have a vineyard in your family and still want to buy a vineyard?"

Mike said with a smile: "The things in the family are basically nothing if they are divided into the hands of the two of us. We are only in name, and the income of the two of us is less than [-] US dollars a year. It can be regarded as Our vineyard?".

"If there is wine in the wine cellar, the old guy William will have something to support him. In the past, apart from bank loans, it was supported by the wine stored in the wine cellar for more than ten years. Now the wine in the wine cellar has been It was sold out, and the bank loan time is coming soon, so the old guy became anxious now, or if you look at his expression, do you think he will sell the vineyard?" Miles said with a small smile after hearing Wang Fan's words .

After speaking, he looked at Ju An and said, "An, what do you think?".

Ju An nodded and said, "I think it's not bad, how about you?"Asking Ju An is equivalent to not asking Ju An what kind of wine he knows. It is only just now that he knows roughly how wine is made, and it is still a half-baked product.

Both Mike and Miles nodded, and then looked at Wang Fan, Wang Fan glanced at everyone and said, "That's settled, let's buy it and save money and run around."

(End of this chapter)