Biodynamic wines

Lawrence wrote on Sun, 01 Mar 2009 12:37:09 -0500:

Please define "biodynamic"? It does not make much sense to me tho' perhaps it's a buzz word of some sort.

Biodynamic is a type of viticulture that uses phases of the moon, a specific pattern of herbal plantings and things like burying manure in cow horns, + no herbicides, etc. It isn't a buzzword but is being used more. It can be used in tandem with sustainable viticulture but sustainable viticulture still can use Roundup etc.

Here is a master list of 521 wineries that practice to one degree or another biodynamic winemaking:

pavane

yes, certifiable him too :-)

and can't swallow

Yes, I have given up on trying to fight the esoterica, but the results are good, with no causal link to the methods involved, but the people who practice it tend to work their grapes and wines with care and come up with good wines

FYI, the horn in which you bury the compost to make preparation 501 must come from a cow that has birthed at least once. :-| Preparation 502 uses a yarrow flowers in a deer's bladder, because to quote Steiner "the bladder of the deer is connected to the forces of the cosmos, in fact, it is almost an image of the cosmos. So we ascribe to the yarrow the power to increase the forces that it already possesses, to combine it with sulfur and other substances". Of course.

BTW, an odd thing, the Demeter biodynamic certification agency defines practices that are allowed and not allowed. Funny how, after worrying about the influence of the planets and the moon, you are stil lallowed to harvest mechanically, chaptalize, add tartaric acid, add commerial yeast cultures, and the use of SO2 up to 140 mg/l for whites and 110 mg/l for reds. The latter is shocking, as these levels are very high and only about 33% lower than what standard EU wine regulations define. See

Mike

snip

Hi Mike, Dale - yes, I have no problems with biodynamic wines I've tried but I wonder about some of Rudolph Steiner's fifth astral plane beliefs. Here's an article that looks at the wines and the beliefs as a whole. Spooky!

Cheers! Martin

There are two certifying agencies that I know of in France. Demeter, which is generalist and covers all types of agriculture, and Biodyvin which is restricted to winemakers.

If you can dig out the winemakers from Demeter's web site you're doing well. However there's complete list of Biodyvin adherents here linked from here.

They have an annual "primeur" tasting and I've been to the last two, because a couple of my friends have used my services as a translator and invited me to say thanks.

I have to say that I find Steiner's reasoning utter hogwash. However, I find the claims by hard headed winemakers about the results that they get from using the methods to be hard to dismiss. These are people whose livelyhood comes from being able to taste their wines and assess them. I find it increasingly unlikely that it's some kind of mass hysteria.

Do you know how to get in touch with me? www at souvigne dot com is my web site and you can use that to send me an email. I have in front of me the tasting booklet for 2007. My notes are illegible, (just as well as they're brief in the extreme) but you will find contact details for all the exhibitors as well as some bumph about what they do. Some may even say how long they've been doing it. I'll be only too pleased to send it to you so you can make such use of it as you feel like.

-- All the best Fatty from Forges

Thanks, pavane. Dee Dee

Hogwash is mild in comparison to what I think!!! Surely any talented vigneron who takes extra-special care of his vineyards and employs "organic" methods, should get similar results without the barmy BD beliefs. Graham

I read the site what I could but my French is very poor.

I read that and was quite surprised as I thought they were all about organic farming, purity, etc.

The initial part of this is just plain tarot card reading/astrology nuts to me. The whole idea was to see if we could tell a difference between non-biodynamic and biodynamic wines from the same vintner. Are there any US vintners who do both?

That list was just what I needed. There are many who do both so this may end being an interesting tasting. We have now combined with a slightly larger group for this idea so we are now up to 24 people total.

BD vignerons say that's not the whole answer.I fully accept that there are going to be a proportion of charlatans trying to jump on the bandwagon, and also a number of people suffering from self delusion. But remember that changing over to BD methods is not going to take place quickly. I think you'll find a number of them have started with moving to organic methods, and then moved on. I don't know their wines well enough to make any claims myself, but if you take the time to listen with care to what THEY say, they are pretty well united in saying that their vines are healthier and their wines are more "focussed" and show the terroir better.

I don't pretend to undestand why swirling water around with nmanure that's been buried in cow horns and then diluting it to near homeopathic levels should have an effect on anything, but when a VERY experienced vigneron says " This horn manure is extraordinary and it will transform the wine! In two or three years, the terroir of the plot emerges again, and all the soil tests carried out show a very significant increase in root dfensity and depth. Hardly astonishing, therefore that the wines are diifferent." at least we should be prepared to say "odd I wonder what's going on", rather than dissmiss the whole thing as nonsense. Don't you think it's pretty arrogant to say that because WE don't understand something it can't be so?

Maybe we will find out one day what's going on, rather in the way that at one time no one had a clue what was happening during fermatation, and came up with the most far fetched proposals. Yet it happened and it worked.

I've no intention - personally - of only buying BD wines, or anything like that. But I will conmtinue to listen with interest to what winemakers say, whether BD, organic or "traditional".

-- All the best Fatty from Forges

Shafer Vineyards is biodynamic. I was there last week and toured. Nice wines too :-)