The afternoon sun beat down mercilessly, pouring a layer of molten gold over the gravel-strewn soil of Médoc. Heat shimmered between the rows of grapevines, and the air hung thick with dry dust.
Baked by the sun, the grape leaves gave off a sharp, bitter-green scent. Bordeaux had been abnormally hot for days. The edges of the leaves were curling and yellowing, looking ready to give up.
A black Citroën CX rolled to a stop in front of Château Latour's iconic cylindrical tower.
The car door swung open.
A foot in a beige, thin-strapped sandal stepped onto the scorching white gravel.
Satsuki climbed out. She wore a wide-brimmed straw sun hat pulled low, sunglasses hiding her face, and a breathable linen shirt with beige trousers.
"It's brutal out here," Fujita Tsuyoshi muttered as he followed her out. He snapped open a black parasol and held it over Satsuki's head. Even in his lightweight summer suit, sweat was already beading on his forehead. "The sun here's worse than Tokyo."
She nudged the umbrella aside and tilted her head up, squinting at the blinding sun and the vast vineyards warping in the heat.
She crouched. Her fingers touched the ground. The white gravel was hot enough to sting. She picked up a pebble and rolled it between her fingertips, feeling the dry heat radiating from deep in the earth.
Drought.
1989 was a dry year.
For farmers, that meant disaster. For grapes, it meant survival mode. As moisture vanished, the vines were forced to drive their roots deep into the earth, sucking up minerals from the lower strata. Sugar concentrated in the fruit. Acidity sharpened.
These were the exact conditions that made a legendary vintage.
Satsuki dropped the stone. It clicked softly against the gravel. She dusted off her hands, a slight smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
Not far away, a noisy engine shattered the winery's calm.
A bus packed with Japanese tourists pulled up by the visitor center. Agricultural Cooperative Overseas Inspection Group was printed on the side.
The doors hissed open, and a flood of middle-aged Japanese men in short-sleeved shirts spilled out, Canon cameras bumping against their chests. They shouted, mopped sweat with handkerchiefs, and pointed at the withered vines.
"What's this? This is Latour? Looks just like the grape trellises back in Yamanashi!"
"Exactly. Leaves are all yellow. These grapes can't taste good. This year's wine is a write-off."
"Who cares? We're here now. The guide said the shop sells the second wine. Let's grab a few bottles for gifts. It's Latour—slap that label on it and it'll sell for tens of thousands of yen in Ginza."
Like ants swarming sugar, they rushed the gift shop, francs and yen in hand, clearing the shelves of *Les Forts de Latour*—the second wine, and not even from a good year.
One man even tried to climb the fence to pick a bunch of unripe grapes before a security guard blew his whistle and chased him off.
Satsuki stood in the tower's shadow and watched.
Her expression didn't change. Her sunglasses hid her eyes.
"Let's go," she said, turning her back on the rowdy group. She headed for the office wing deeper in the winery. "Where we're going is underground."
They passed through heavy oak doors and down a winding stone staircase.
The air turned cold instantly.
The underground cellar.
This was another world. Thick limestone walls shut out the heat and noise. The air was cool and damp, heavy with the scent of oak barrels and the mellow, evaporating perfume of aged red wine.
Under dim lights, oak barrels were stacked like a mountain range, vanishing into darkness. Each one had its ID number and vintage scrawled on it in chalk.
Château Latour's general manager, an elegant gray-haired Frenchman in a three-piece suit, waited at the end of the passage. His name was Jean-Paul. He was rubbing his hands, looking awkward, his gaze flicking between Satsuki and Fujita.
"Miss Saionji, about the purchase you mentioned…" Jean-Paul adjusted his glasses. He looked at the young Eastern woman in front of him with open doubt, like he was about to talk a stubborn child out of a bad idea. "Are you certain you want to buy en primeur? And at this volume?"
"The market's not good," Jean-Paul went on. "American orders are down, and… the weather this year is too hot. People worry the grapes will scorch on the vine. Buying wine futures now is very risky."
*En primeur*—wine futures.
Normally, this was a game for professional merchants and seasoned collectors. High stakes. High gambling. And the girl in front of him didn't look old enough to drink.
Satsuki ignored his warning.
She walked between the rows of barrels, her fingers trailing along the rough wood. It felt slightly cool to the touch.
"Risk?"
Satsuki stopped in front of a massive oak barrel, turned, and removed her sunglasses. Her eyes were clear and disarmingly innocent.
"Monsieur Jean-Paul, I think you've misunderstood," she said, her voice light with the careless naivety of a spoiled heiress.
"I'm not buying these wines to resell them, or for some return on investment."
"Then for…?" Jean-Paul was lost.
"For my collection, obviously," Satsuki said, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"My sixteenth birthday is coming up. My father asked what I wanted. I told him I wanted my own wine cellar. But the wines available now are all so old-fashioned. I don't like them."
She pointed at the barrels marked '1989'.
"I like the numbers for this vintage. They're lucky. Plus, I heard it's a very hot year? A passionate year should make interesting wine, don't you think?"
"I want to buy them all and keep them in my cellar. I'll open them when I get married someday—or never—or when I throw a party."
"Just… because of that?" Jean-Paul was dumbfounded.
For a birthday gift. For a 'lucky number.' She wanted to buy 3% of Château Latour's production this year.
A deal worth hundreds of millions of francs.
"What else?" Satsuki tilted her head, puzzled.
"Our house in Tokyo is huge, and the basement is empty. If I don't fill it with something, my voice echoes."
She gestured to Fujita.
He pulled a letter of intent from his briefcase, along with a copy of a Swiss Bank cashier's check.
"This is the deposit. Swiss francs. Cash. Paid in full."
Satsuki added, "But I have one condition."
"I don't want to ship this wine yet. Too much hassle. I want you to keep storing it here, in this cellar, under my name. When I remember it, or when the renovations in Tokyo are done, I'll send someone for it."
"Also, not just Latour. Margaux, Mouton, Haut-Brion… I want some of those too. Monsieur Jean-Paul, you have connections. Can you pass the word? Just say the youngest daughter of the Saionji Family wants to buy some toys."
Jean-Paul stared at the cashier's check, then at the perfectly relaxed Satsuki.
Every market analysis and quota excuse he'd prepared died in his throat.
You don't talk market with an Asian billionaire heiress who buys top-tier red wine like it's a doll. In this industry, cash is God. And if God happens to be a clueless fool, then she's God's mother.
"Since Miss Saionji has such refined tastes…" Jean-Paul's attitude flipped 180 degrees. Wrinkles of a smile bloomed across his face.
"No problem at all! I'll coordinate with the board on the quota. It's Latour's honor to contribute to the Saionji Family's cellar."
He eyed Satsuki and, almost as an afterthought, asked tentatively, "Actually, if you're this interested in Bordeaux terroir… there's a Second Growth estate next door facing some management issues. The owner wants to sell."
"It's not as famous as Latour, but the soil is the same—top-tier gravel. If you'd like, buying it as a vacation manor would be lovely."
This was common lately. French wineries offloading poorly managed assets at high prices to the Japanese, letting them eat the maintenance costs while the sellers took the money and ran.
Satsuki met Jean-Paul's expectant gaze.
A cold, almost invisible sneer flashed deep in her eyes.
You want to treat me like a mark?
"Oh? A winery?" She tilted her head, confusion all over her face.
"I don't want that."
Satsuki covered her nose and mouth with a handkerchief, like the cellar's musty smell bothered her.
"Monsieur Jean-Paul, farming is for farmers. You have to worry about weather, bugs, workers striking. Too dirty. Too tiring."
"I only like what's inside the bottle."
"I only like the joy you get from popping a cork. I don't like stepping in mud."
Jean-Paul blinked, then cursed inwardly. Typical spoiled rich girl.
But this was perfect. Buying only the product, not the assets, made her the ideal client.
"In that case…" Jean-Paul gave a strained smile. To lighten the mood, he grabbed a glass thief from the wall and walked to an oak barrel.
"Since you're here, why not taste it?"
"This is new wine, barreled just last week. It's still going through malolactic fermentation. It's rough, but this is its most primitive form."
He pulled the bung and dipped the glass tube into the barrel.
A purple-black liquid came up, and he poured it into a clear tasting glass.
It was cloudy, ink-dark, with none of the clear ruby glow of finished wine. A ring of fermentation foam clung to the edge.
Satsuki took the glass.
She didn't swirl. Didn't sniff. Like it was ordinary grape juice, she raised it and took a big gulp.
The instant it hit her mouth—
"Ugh…"
Her whole face twisted. Like she'd swallowed poison, she clapped a hand over her mouth. Her brows knotted. Disgust and pain flashed undisguised in her eyes.
"Mi… Miss Saionji?" Jean-Paul's heart jumped into his throat.
It's over.
Seeing her distress, cold sweat broke out across his back.
How could he forget? She was still a teenager. This raw liquid, mid-fermentation, with tannins like sandpaper, was hard for adults to stomach. Let alone a rich girl used to sweet drinks.
"Th-this… wine at this stage really… doesn't taste good…" Jean-Paul stammered, already calculating the loss of the deal. "If you don't like it, we can—"
"Cough, cough…"
Satsuki forced herself to swallow the bitter liquid.
She dabbed the corners of her mouth with her handkerchief, even stuck out the tip of her tongue and exhaled, disgusted.
"That's… awful," she said bluntly. Her eyes were actually watering from the astringency. She looked like a wronged child.
Jean-Paul went pale.
Then, Satsuki didn't put the glass down.
She stared at the cloudy, ugly, pungent liquid. And into her eyes—just full of disgust a second ago—came a strange light.
"Even though it tastes awful. Like swallowing a stone."
Satsuki looked up and beamed at the despairing Jean-Paul. Her smile had the excitement of a kid finding a new toy, plus a hint of childish, cruel innocence.
"But I tasted… power."
"Power?" Jean-Paul was stunned.
"Yes. Power."
Satsuki swirled the glass, watching purple stains cling to the sides.
"Right now, it's like an untamed beast. Biting my tongue. Kicking my throat. This kind of vitality… it's wonderful."
"I've heard my father say the more mischievous a child is when they're young, the more successful they'll be grown up."
"This barrel is the same, isn't it?"
She tilted her head, matter-of-fact.
"Its bones are so strong. It must live a very long time. I want to lock it in my cellar for ten or twenty years and see if it still dares to bite like this."
"This is… a very interesting 'toy'."
Jean-Paul's mouth hung open. He stared at her like she'd grown a second head.
Is this… chuunibyou?
Comparing a top red's aging potential to a 'mischievous child.' Calling collecting 'taming a beast.' He'd never heard logic like that.
But somehow… it made a damn kind of sense.
"Miss Saionji… your insight is truly… unique," Jean-Paul said, wiping sweat, wild joy replacing his panic.
As long as she bought, she could use it to water flowers for all he cared.
"However…"
Satsuki turned and handed the glass with that single sip of 'poison' to Fujita, like she couldn't stand to hold it another second.
"I don't want a second sip right now."
She walked toward the cellar exit, her heels clicking a brisk rhythm on the stone.
"Fujita, pay. I want to go back to the hotel and eat dessert to get this taste out of my mouth."
"Yes, Young Lady."
Walking out of the cold cellar, the heat hit them like a wall.
Satsuki put her sunglasses back on, hiding the coldness that flickered through her eyes.
That sip of wine was hard to drink.
But those hair-raising tannins and the sky-high alcohol were exactly what marked the 1989 'Vintage of the Century'.
That was longevity.
Those were the seeds of astronomical profit.
She glanced back at the ancient winery tower.
"A beast, huh…" Satsuki thought, amused.
"When this beast is tamed, everything it spits out will be gold."
Deep in the underground cellar, those oak barrels slept on. Sealed with the S.A. Group label, waiting in the dark.
Waiting to become the most expensive poison in the world.