Empire of the Ring

Chapter 54: Zeynep’s Wine Company (1)

As it turned September, the heat started to cool down. Grapes had been matured and frequently inspectors from wine companies came to check the grape’s sugar content level. The Charles Wine Company of Baku expected Zeynep’s farm to produce about 300000 gallons of grape extracts in this year. With that amount of extracts, they would be able to produce more than 1 million bottles of wine.

Charles Wine Company knew that Youngho planned to buy oak caskets to produce wine in the future. However, not only they were expensive but also oak caskets took long time to age wine. It was impossible to produce more than 200000 bottles a year. Knowing this, the Charles company started acting high-handedly, thinking that they were the only market for Youngho. Gerhardt also complained that the inspectors from the company who come to the farm to check the sugar content, acted rude these days. On top of being rude, they finally contacted Youngho that they have to lower the price of grape extracts. It was not like Youngho had not experienced Baku’s tradespeople’s poor manner, but it still shook him since they changed their word right before cultivation. There was no business ethics in their mind. Youngho decided that he could not continue to have business with them since he would have to put up with their bad manners every time.

Youngho plan to install stainless steel wine tank facility on his farm to produce budget wine. There would be no problem storing wine once he installed more tanks in the fermenting cellar and stainless steel tanks. As long as he could produce wine on his own, he would not have to worry about the market since Yaniv said he would buy them all from Youngho. There was a month of time left until cultivation.

The problem was how Charles Wine Company would react, now that Youngho was not providing the extracts to them. Businessmen of Baku always made sure they got even with people if their business was damaged by them. If they came with fire and burn the trees after sprinkling some oil on the farm field, grape cultivation would happen only in Youngho’s dream. Youngho asked Jongil, who was now living with Cha Insoo inside the city of Baku, to come to work in the farm for a while.

The school was in session for the siblings. Since they were gone to school, the farm was quiet during the day time. With everyone and Jongil joining the farm, it became loud in the evening. Cha Insoo became close with Zeynep and Szechenyi to the extent where he jokingly had a physical fight with them, but he was especially distant from Fatima. Youngho asked why and his answer stunned him.

“I heard from Jongil, man. How can I treat her easily? I know she’s still young but she’ll be my sister-in-law in the future. Good luck, man.”

That night, Youngho slapped Insoo’s back so hard that there was a hand print left on his back and Jongil was chocked by Youngho in the bathroom.

Fatima who would be 20 the next day especially looked mature unlike her still young age. She never acted impolite or made jokes unsparingly, she was always calm and smiling. Her attitude even felt weighty sometimes. Because of her mature attitude, customers in clothing stores frequently mistook her as Youngho’s wife. His friends made jokes about her that Youngho was raising her to get married when she was grown up. He did not mind his friends but was nervous if Fatima would find about their jokes.

Fatima planned to enroll at the Baku State University by next fall. The international school specially allowed to send their students to the state university with the recommendation letter from the school principal. According to the school, she would be qualified after another year of schooling. Youngho could imagine his mischievous friends calling Fatima ‘sister-in-law’ when she graduates from college.

Hearing that Youngho would be beginning to produce bargain wine, Charles Wine Company tried to negotiate with him that they would buy the extracts as promised before. However, Youngho did not accept their request. He strongly kept his stance that he could not have business with a company that changed their mind right before cultivation. When he rejected them firmly, they moved related government officials to pressure him. Youngho did not back up. After all, he was one who had a personal meeting with the president. When Youngho threatened the company saying that he would ask the president to conclude this feud, they stopped forcing him in silence.

Buying and installing 60 stainless tanks with the size of 5000 gallons was troublesome to Youngho. Moreover, he needed more tanks to use them for in the fermenting cellar. Right now he did not have much space left in the farm for those facilities. Eventually, the Charles factory contacted Youngho to have a long-term contract with them at the price of six dollars for each extract gallon. When he called the tank manufacturer factory, they were in the process of making 30 stainless tanks and 10 fermenting tanks. The number of tanks could cover 150,000 gallons of extracts. Charles Company had to pay ahead to buy rest of the extracts excluding the 150,000 gallons that Youngho would be producing on his own.

The payment that Youngho received ahead from the company, 900,000 dollars, was enough to pay for the tanks and other facilities that he had bought.

From the tug of war with the Charles company, Youngho’s farm was equipped with wine production facility. The greedy company now secured only 150,000 gallons, and they would have to pay Youngho 150,000 dollars every year to receive extracts. They would still make money from the business but they had lost their chance of making more money from being unethical. Youngho decided to wait before expanding his farm until he made some money from selling grape extracts to the Charles company and making bargain wines for Yaniv. He did not want to risk his business by expanding it too quickly. Besides, the potential war was still waiting around the corner. He did not want to spend all of his money if there was a war.

After a long struggle, the cultivation finally began. Pushing everything behind, Youngho first provided the extracts to the Charles company. Grapes were picked by 20 cultivators imported from Turkey. Because the cultivator machines went around and gathered grapes, it only took a few days.

The grapes picked were moved by four wheelers with a cargo box and poured into crushers. Crushed grapes went through a press machine and filter to become extracts. All Youngho had to do was to load the extracts to the Charles company’s tank truck which was parked in Youngho’s farm. The cultivation should be done at once in a short period of time in order to avoid fruit drops. It took 20 days to finish the cultivation process. This year, the farm produced 310000 gallons of extracts.

Youngho only had tanks enough for 150,000 gallons, so he gave another 10,000 gallons to the company as a bonus. The 150,000 gallons of extracts could produce 700,000 bottles of 750 milliliter sized wine. He expected to produce more extracts next year, so the future of the farm was looking bright.

In addition to the added facilities, Youngho hired people who had long experiences of producing wines from other farms. He needed the know-hows of other wineries. Even though a bargain wine, it would be sold under Zeynep Farm’s name, he wanted to produce great tasting wine and gain popularity.

For two months, Youngho had been working in the farm only. He reinforced the security system to prepare for the possible harm from the wine company, they might come to destroy the farm’s facility since they could only receive grape extracts when Youngho could not produce wine. Youngho never trusted the businessmen in Baku.

During those two months, Youngho had gone to the branch head’s meeting in the European chapter in Frankfurt. He found out that all of the funds for the militia had been cut. They had decided to stop instructing the militants in December since the Armenian army planned to transfer the militants in the official army.

When the militants were absorbed into the army, foreign instructors would be an obstacle to them. So, the CIA had decided to stop supporting the militia.

The clothing store in Yerevan was doing well on its own. It has been a month since their grand opening and the sales were increasing as they were gaining popularity. There were four employees, Esther, Rebecca, and two guards. The two friends planned to get married next year and live in Yerevan. The two friends did not have to quit their job since their job was going to be terminated anyways by the CIA. He could not call them to Baku, since they were going to get married to Armenian girls. Now that the foundation of their lives was laid by Youngho, they would be able to live on by themselves in Yerevan. Youngho knew that he would not be able to go see them in Armenia as often since the CIA did not have any job in there anymore. As an agent, he had to keep in mind to be careful in every step he makes.

Cho Chulhwan and Um Sangtaek were withdrawn from Nagorno-Karabakh earlier than expected. It was still in the middle of November. The fact that the CIA decided to pull their men out of the militia earlier meant that the transfer of militants to the Armenian army was being rushed. Somehow Armenia was moving fast as if they were being chased.

Chulhwan and Sangtaek moved to Yerevan, they told Youngho that all of their future in-laws were getting ready to move to Yerevan as well. The two friends must have felt the near danger too. Youngho also heard that Margos the head of the militia lost his job since there was no militia anymore. He thought that he would not be related to Nagorno-Karabakh anymore. All of things that he was related were gone. Youngho felt a little bitter inside but there was nothing he could do, he worried how he should explain this to Edward in Panama.