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The New Old Thing.
Recently, I attended a conference and tasting of American Biodynamic wines. Unknowing of the principles and practices and having no known remembrance of ever tasting a Biodynamic wine, I was intrigued and excited (and skeptical). The conference was set up as "conversations" amongst panelists drawn on to discuss the "elements" of Biodynamics in American wine, the Oregon "experience," the "marketplace" challenges and finally a monologue about terroir by the self-crowned master of dirt, Randall Grahm. As a newbie to the new, new thing in winemaking, I expected at least the introduction or a panelist to sum up the seminar. Actually, I wasn't the only one with this expectation. Neither the commencement addressor could define it, nor the moderator; who then turned to each panelist to define Biodynamic wine ("growing") in twenty words or less. Eight people in total. Two point five words each. No definition in twenty words or less. What we did receive is the cliche deer in the headlights look from the appointed experts; or more personal, the way my dog looks at me when I tell her not to do something - your lips are moving, but I don't understand what you are saying - you know, that kind of look. The problem with describing Biodynamic winegrowing became immediately evident; there is a lack of delicious adjectives to describe farming. A grape vine isn't a bramble of black forest fruit under a cigar box nose with a bittersweet chocolate finish. A grape vine is a tree planted in dirt that sprouts green leaves and yellowish-green or purple, um, grapes. However, there was a bunch of ten-cent words, or for you lexicon types, a Scrabble board of triple-word score kind of words thrown about by the panelists:
Bio - Life; living organism: i.e. Biology.
Biodynamic - The branch of Biology dealing with energy or the activity of living organisms; or, of or relating to the study of the effects of dynamic processes, such as motion or acceleration, on living organisms; or, of or relating to a system of Organic crop cultivation. A-ha. Or not. Organisms. Eww. That's gross. Like the first time you saw the movie Alien. Sigourney Weaver was hot. The Alien organism was not. The second most popular question, we'll call it The $60,000 Question, during the event was - how do you describe the differences between farming Organically or Biodynamically? We... don't have a winner, please refund our ticket price. But from what was projected into the air by the lofty idealists was that Biodynamic farming like organic farming forbids the use of all chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, hormones, fumigants or genetically modified organisms. However, Biodynamics goes beyond the traditional composting, manuring, and preparations of natural sprays and teas that are employed to achieve healthy soil and crop fertility; the Biodynamic farmer (the "Holistic Farm Manager") mixes up a brew, in an over-sized blackened crock-pot. The ingredients are as follows, serves 4 to 6 acres: cow manure, dried flower heads such as chamomile, dandelions and yarrow (a Eurasian daisy, I am assuming the local daisies just aren't up to snuff); insert mixture with a pastry bag into cow horns, a stag's bladder or a cow's intestine. Braise underground for up to one year. Other practices, to name a couple, call to plant grated oak bark in the skull of a domestic animal (cat, dog?) and to steep a tea made from the horsetail plant (assuming we're all familiar with the horsetail plant). The words witchcraft and voodoo were used above. Now I know why. But on a happy side, an Old McDonald side, many Biodynamic farmers see the benefit of having a range of animal life on the property, for eco-insectory (ecologies for insects) and fertilizing (and mutilating) purposes. Some panelists couldn't stop talking about their sheep, Dexter cows, pygmy goats and wild boars while pouring their wines for you later in the tasting portion of the program. I look forward to Robert Parker's Wine Buyer's Guide, 7th Edition when he sections off Biodynamic wines with descriptions of wild boar gnawing off the head of a pygmy goat amongst of flurry of sheep's wool. As for the tasting. There were some high and low lights. Randall Grahm should be prohibited from making wine on many levels. First and foremost they taste of industrial jellies and jams. An aside. Indulge me. Part of the council of elder's conversation had to do with Biodynamic farming and winemaking. The panelists were against a wine (a grape) being Organically or Biodynamically grown in the vineyard then handed over to an "industrialist, commercial" winemaker who believes in the addition of nutrients, acids, inoculants, etc., to help bring out the best the grape has to offer. This is not a Biodynamic wine; this is Biodynamic farming and winemaking. And that is fine in my opinion. We can, we shall and we should tend, till and treat the earth and help sustain it as best we can. However, wine can be manipulated thereafter if one wishes to improve quality or bring out characteristics of a high-quality wine. After the grapes are harvested and the wine is being "manipulated," you are doing nothing to damage or prevent the soil or the vine from regenerating. You may be throwing away those hard earned and committed hours to witchcraft for chemistry, but at the end of the day, no one wants to drink a wine that tastes nothing like wine. For example. Cotturi wines were a palate adventure. Crafted by the bear of a man standing behind a table that he dwarfs in exponentials, I thought I was standing beneath the shadow of ol' St. Nick himself - a larger than life mystery to us all. And when I tasted his wine, I pictured the man putting a few red grape clusters in a burlap Christmas stocking, sewing it shut, stomping it under his ho-ho-ho sized girth and then hanging it from the mantle to be stewed above the intense heat of biodegradable, carbonized plant matter we know as coal. Other wineries present and pouring their "healthy, holistic, homeopathic, environmentally aware and oh-so sensitive Bio-wines" were: Benziger - their "Tribute" wine, a Cabernet "Meritage," was best of class in this crowd, but after listening to Mike Benziger talk about being the first to market with Biodynamic wines, I would have expected something a little more polished from years of experience. Grgich's Sauvignon Blanc was gargle worthy. Robert Sinskey's winemakers didn't seem all too perturbed to be pouring bottle after bottle of corked Abraxas (a white field blend). Ceago - one of the labels of the Fetzer family after selling out to the Jack Daniels family (Brown-Forman); I lingered around this table to chat up the wealthy, easy to look at and single wine proprietress; which tells the truth about wine drinking - some times it is not the wine, but the experience you have drinking it. Cooper Mountain (Willamette Valley, Oregon) - top notch Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. However, the man behind the table was French, with a heavy accent and he was a low talker. Wine good, understanding what he said, bad. But I did imagine whatever he was saying, it was our little secret that he didn't care too much for the other people pouring wine around him. Which made me feel that he was just here to market his wines (Biodynamic or not) deviously and oh, so French. All in all, the debate is still ongoing and will continue to fester in the Inconvenient Truth of Al Gore's world until an independent advocate, or better yet, a consumer, lifts their nose, licks their lips and states, "damn, that's good cow horn."
Post - November'07 Back to home...
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