Xiao Yifei asked with a plan in his heart, he changed the topic, pointed to the house on a small dirt bag in the middle of the vineyard and asked:

"This is where Bo them?"

"No, Jimmy lived there, built it in 1984, and it's called Beehill."

The Jimmy he was talking about was Beau's father, Jimmy, who was the head of the winery at the time in Paris. Barrett. The house is in a good location, just a small earthen bag 6 meters above the ground, about the size of his space, surrounded by vineyards.

Jimmy and his second wife couldn't live in such a large house, and since it was located in the middle of a vineyard, they set aside the left half as the office of David and his vineyard managers and the winery's publicity department.

Although there is a main road more than 4 meters wide that leads to the winery's parking lot, the house number of Bee Hill is not Tubbs Street in front of the winery, but 3505 Ivey Road, which leads directly to the reservoir on the west side of the Napa River.

The two of them followed the mountain to the curved part of the "saxophone".

The hills are gentle, and David points to the solar panels on the gentle slope and explains:

"This is what we installed a few years ago."

They also use solar energy.

"This thing can only be used for lighting at night, and the rest of the thing still has to be wired, and if I want to say that this thing is useless. Not to mention the cost of electricity, it will cost you more. ”

Xiao Yifei shrugged his shoulders.

"It's a composting site."

Saying this, it should be David's triumph, he began to gush endlessly.

"Our compost is made from 65% grape pomace, 10% chicken manure, 20% wood chips, and 5% of the last compost, mixed together, and also added aquatic plants from Yuhu Lake. Very good for the soil. This is done under Bob's guidance. ”

With that, he also reached out and grabbed a handful of compost.

"You see, the microbes inside turn these materials into nutrients that are very useful for the grapes."

Xiao Yifei thought about chicken droppings, but he just pinched a little bit, felt it, and sniffed it again. Unpleasant.

After washing their hands, the two of them continued to walk forward.

"This is the 1.h plot and inside is a 1974 Cabernet Sauvignon. This is the 1-90a plot, and the first few are Cabernet Sauvignon planted in '89. ”

Xiao Yifei noticed that he had skipped a plot on flat land, and he asked:

"What year is this plot?"

"This land is not ours."

"Oh, whose is it?"

David pulled him to a higher place, pointed and said:

"This plot and the plot above, plus the one on the other side of the river, belong to the Vera family."

"Where do they live?"

"Over there, the trees by the river are in the way, and you can't see it."

Xiao Yifei looked carefully at the surrounding environment, above the road in front of the winery, east of the Napa River, only these two plots were not included in the scope of the transaction.

Xiao Yifei walked to the vineyard of the Vera family and carefully compared it with the vineyard of Monterena. It was found that the grapes grew about the same, but they had more fruit on each vine, the vineyard was poorly managed, and the miscellaneous branches under the stumps were not pulled out cleanly.

"How's their vineyard?"

"It's not bad, but they don't control the yield very strictly, and the price of the grapes is lower."

"They don't have a distillery of their own?"

"No, they're growers."

"Did we buy grapes from outside?"

"No, it's not easy to control the quality of grapes bought outside. Just 5% of low-quality grapes can make a big difference in the quality of the wine, so we would rather lease land than buy it. ”

"And how do they set the price of the grapes they buy?"

David has lived here for more than 20 years, and although the winery has not purchased grapes, he is still aware of them.

Napa Valley is very small and is the smallest wine region in the world. But in the small Napa Valley, there are a lot of wineries. So much so that it caught the attention of Napa County, and the county board of supervisors issued a rule that new wineries must have more than 1 acre of vineyards.

Even so, the number of distilleries has increased from 160 to 400. This dramatic increase has forced the county board of supervisors to raise the bar again, and they have largely refused to approve new wineries, and even if they were to establish new wineries, they would increase the area of vineyards by 10 acres. Coupled with the development and growth of existing wineries, the merger of small wineries and the acquisition of vineyards, the growth of the number of wineries was finally curbed.

With so many wineries crammed into the more than 40,000 acres of Napa Valley, it's bound to come in all sizes.

From large wineries with thousands of acres of vineyards to behemoths that produce millions of bottles of wine every year. There are also medium-sized wineries like Monterena with hundreds of acres of vineyards. There are also small wineries with only a dozen acres of vineyards, growing grapes for their own winemaking. There are even some early wineries that don't have vineyards at all, and all the vineyards they use to make wine are bought from the market.

Napa also has its own vineyard where all the grapes grown are sold without opening a winery. This kind of growers, who are generally family-based, have some of their grapes purchased by the big wineries in long-term agreements, and the rest are put on the bulk market for other wineries to buy.

This model is similar to that in China, where farmers grow grapes, sell them to wineries, and the wineries make wine and sell them. However, unlike in China, there is a growers' association, which negotiates with the winemakers' association, and the two negotiate a benchmark price, after which the grape purchase price for each field is determined by multiplying the benchmark price by a coefficient.

This coefficient is also negotiated by the winemakers' association and the growers' association, such as how old the grapes are, how many sugar grapes, and how many grape sugar, but also according to the grape yield, whether it is organic, the degree of drying, etc.

In this way, after negotiating a benchmark price each year, everyone can calculate the price of their grapes at once according to the formula. Of course, this price is only the lower limit, and the purchase price of the grapes must be higher than this price.

Xiao Yifei thinks this strategy is good, because it can force growers to increase the sugar content as much as possible, choose organic farming, and also allow everyone to consciously limit production and improve the quality of grapes. In turn, it can improve the quality of the wine and ensure the advantages of the Napa brand.

He sincerely hoped that the same would be done at home. However, it is more difficult for China to really want to implement it in this way.

The first is that there is no strong plantation association. Secondly, there are too few wineries, except for the three major wineries of Dynasty, Great Wall, and Changyu, you don't know who to sell to. The three major distilleries can easily reach a price alliance and reduce prices as much as possible. Even if there is a domestic growers' association that sets a price limit, domestic farmers will never be able to clean up the winery by preferring to let the grapes rot in the ground rather than sell them to the winery if the price limit is not reached. Therefore, even if there is a growers' association that stipulates that it cannot be sold below the limit price, there are definitely farmers who secretly sell grapes to wineries, and he also speaks eloquently about how he is short of money and how pitiful, and under the instigation of the media, "kind" onlookers will definitely criticize the growers' association.

Forget it, let's take care of ourselves. Xiao Yifei took a lot of pictures of the surrounding situation. If you can buy the Vera family and add the existing manor vineyard, then the eastern plot will be completely your own, and the shape of the entire vineyard will become the shape of the ancient Chinese ingot, and the gentle mountain bag will become the garden in the middle of the ingot.

"How about we buy it?"

"Of course that's fine. Our side becomes one. ”

"How many acres are in the Vera family?"

"These two are 40 acres each, and there are 13 acres to the west side of the river."

It doesn't seem like much.

"Are they willing to sell?"

"I don't know, I guess I want to, after all, he's in his 60s." (The age is increased by 10 years here.) ）

Ending this topic, Xiao Yifei pointed to a villa next to the vineyard and asked:

"That should be Beau's residence, right?"

"Yes, it's also within the scope of the deal."

Xiao Yifei took a brief look, this villa is remote enough, two houses are sandwiched between two hills of more than 100 meters, there are dense woods on the mountain, and there is not a single neighbor around. The closest to Beau's villa is Vera's house at 3470 Ivey Road, which is 600 meters away. Once they bought the vineyard of the Vera family, they would have to move out, and if they lived in Bo's villa, the nearest neighbor would be even farther away, and there would be only two families on the opposite hillside 800 meters away, which would be too desolate.

"Thank you, David, I finally know what the vineyard I'm going to buy looks like."

"Then I'll go back to work."

"Let's go together, I'll go back and have a look."

The two men walked back along the shallow Napa River.

"David, I took a look, there are very few drip irrigation units in the vineyards, what's going on?"

"We are close to the hillside, the reservoir and the Napa River, so we are not very short of water. If you really need to water, we have a pond in every house, and you just need to pump water with a machine, after all, drip irrigation equipment also costs money. However, in recent years, we have also laid some drip irrigation units on the slopes. ”

"And what if we all use drip irrigation?"

David was taken aback: "Shaw, that's a million dollars." ”

"I'll just ask about the effect."

"The results are definitely good, we have a very smooth drainage, and if we have drip irrigation, the water in the vineyard is easier to control, it is more conducive to the growth of the grapes, and the quality of the grapes can be improved."

"Then I see."

"Xiao, don't you tell the truth, you have to be cautious about tens of millions of expenses."

Of course, it's true, how can he optimize the grapes without drip irrigation equipment, even if he plants fortified grapes, then he has to water high-concentration space water every year. But these words cannot be spoken.

Back at the resort, Xiao Yifei called Concubine Yue again and instructed her to inquire if the Vera family was willing to sell the vineyard. Concubine Yue didn't mind at all that she could earn more intermediary fees, and she was not the main force in the negotiation at this time, so she hurriedly ran to inquire about the situation.