THE BOOZE BIN
By Cassandra Bianco (@cnbianco)
Monday afternoon I attended Return to Terroir, where 77 wineries from Chile to Slovenia to Australia showcased their biodynamic wines. My colleague and I circled the energetic room chatting with winemakers from Corsica, Georgia, France and Italy, and inquired about the vast differences of terroir. It was interesting to find that a number of these vineyards could afford to be sustainable mostly due to the ideal geographic microclimates. But none of the conversations led to how terroir relates to biodynamics, so I decided to look into this further.
In short, biodynamic agriculture is a method of organic farming that emphasizes the holistic development and interrelationships of the soil, plants and animals as a self-sustaining system. Biodynamic farming has much in common with other organic approaches, such as emphasizing the use of manures and composts and excluding of the use of artificial chemicals on soil and plants. I came across Lily-Elaine Hawk Wakawaka’s four fantastic diagrams (two included in this post) that visually help explain the process.
Dana Nigro at Wine Spectator recently reported on the current organic wine debate, which highlights how the U.S. and Europe view organic wine practices differently causing consumer confusion.
Given the trend for all things green, seeing Biodynamic on a label does have a certain caché. But from a marketing perspective, I’m curious to see how the biodynamic movement plays out, and if it will continue to recycle. One thing for certain, organic horticulture practices are here to stay. Marketers, we are now tasked to make a conscious effort in working towards clarifying consumer awareness on what makes products truely organic, for all wine and food products.
For heaven’s sake, does anyone care that these biodynamic practices arise from seances? Yes, seances. Communications with the spirit world. That is the sole source material for biodynamics. Are any biodynamic practitioners troubled by the fact their practices and preperations are dependent on such superstition? The entire thing is based on seances Rudolf Steiner held with himself. There is no other source for biodynamics other than Steiner’s communications with the spirit world in those seances.
In discussions of biodynamics, how can one ignore is it’s creation story? It was derived from the spiritual seance. How can followers avoid scrutinizing this? It deserves a Saturday Night Live skit where Seth Meyers asks “Really? You based your farming practices on seances? Really?”
Steiner doesn’t think there is a problem with the seance issue. The reason, which Is hopelessly comic, is Steiner’s insistence others can enter the same spiritual seance and will undoubtedly discover the identical preparations and practices. Surprisingly, no one else was able to derive
No one else was able to derive anything of the sort. So believers determined only the “initiated” could enter the spirit world to confirm Steiner.
If you find spiritual seances believable, you will find your gullibility handy, actually indispensable, should you peruse Maria Thun’s biodynamic calendar. Distant stars in the sky, so many light years away, fancifully anthropomorphized. The stars and the moon have a very weak gravitational efffect on us compared to the hillsides surrounding many vineyards.
I do not know if U.S. and Europe have the same rules to regulate the bio-dynamic. In Europe, biodynamics is considered almost a philosophy. Its main goal is environmental sustainability: to respect the seasonality, trends in natural, avoid jamming in the best way to use and maintain over time the healing powers of the earth, that with the intensive use of agricultural land, may be at risk.
I believe that if a grower wishes to follow the principles of biodynamics in the vineyard (established in Europe by the disciplinary Demeter), has every right to do so.
The problem, at least here in Europe, is that in the face of a discipline Demeter (does not deal with processing and winemaking practices), there is no regulation for the practice of biodynamic winemaking (only in France there is a discipline that effect, which lets you write on the label “biodynamic wine”; in the rest of Europe that is not possible, but is allowed only the word “wine biodynamic agriculture”, or “certified Demeter”).
In conclusion, pending resolution of these problems, I would say that if the primary objective of a biodynamic wine grower is environmental sustainability, another equally important goal that he gets, is the diversification of the wine market. There is no doubt that the biodynamic wines, have characteristics of well-marked, are not standardized, as climatic and seasonal conditions can diversify a harvest on the other. That are far away from the idea of ??intensive industrial or mass production.
Biodynamic practices and some organic practices are not sustainable agricultural practices. The issue for BD is burning excess fossil fuels and wearing out tractors and compacting soil conducting futile practices. Organic and BD practices can use broad pesticides killing beneficials alongside pests.