'Nutty' winemakers make splash
2003-06-26 07:58
France - Little more than a curiosity not so long ago, bio-dynamic wines were all the talk this week at the world's top international wine trade fair, Vinexpo.
At a fringe tasting in premises overlooking the river Gironde in this southwestern city, makers of what are claimed to be "better than simply organic" wines offered a line-up of over 70 top bio-dynamic wines from around the world.
Even the man behind the tasting, Nicolas Joly, who also happens to make one of the very best white wines in France - la Coulee de Serrant - was amazed at the success of the event.
"There were at least 1 000 visitors," he said. "We knew that the tasting would rouse some interest - bio-dynamic producers have got used to being looked upon as a curiosity, a bit like animals at a zoo - but we never expected to attract quite so many people."
Bio-dynamic wine producers see their agricultural methods as going one step further than plain organic growers.
Like organic wine producers they do not use chemical products in the vineyard or in the cellar, apart from one or two ingredients such as copper and sulphites. However, they treat their vines with what could be summed up as diluted, homeopathic doses.
Some of the basic vineyard sprays, for example, include a watered down solution concocted exclusively with stinging nettles and water; another favoured spray is made of crushed quartz stone. One teaspoon of quartz diluted in 800 litres of water then sprayed on one hectare of vines is said to increase the plant's ability to photosynthesise.
Around half of the wines shown at this week's event came from French vineyards.
Those from Burgundy included the famous Domaine Leroy owned by Lalou Bize-Leroy, who has been an ardent bio-dynamic defender since 1988. On the next table were wines from Aubert de Villaine's family domain in the Cote Chalonnaise. De Villaine is also co-owner of the Domaine de la Romanee-Conti where bio-dynamic methods are currently being tried out on selected vineyard plots.
"It's a relief to be able to taste such a wonderful range of quality wines in one space," said a wine shipper, as he tasted a luscious sweet white wine, or Selection de Grains nobles, from Weingut Schonberger, one of the two bio-dynamic wines to be made in Austria.
Australia was represented by two vineyards - the only ones to make top quality bio-dynamic wine.
"We started making wine in 1997" said Julian Castagna, an ex-advertising producer and film director who now runs Castagna Vineyards in Victoria.
"For my wife and I there was no alternative. It was bio-dynamic or nothing. As far as we are concerned bio-dynamic farming is the best way to achieve optimum fruit quality, and the best way to get the terroir to express itself. After all we are in this game, aspiring to make the best - and nothing less than that! "
"People thought we were nuts when we started in 1984," said James Milton, the only bio-dynamic producer in New Zealand, a faithful follower of Rudolph Steiner.
Steiner, perhaps better known for his theory of education, was the 19th century Austrian philosopher and cosmic thinker who invented bio-dynamic farming, a then new form of farming based on balance and respect for nature.
In bio-dynamic cultivation, the moon has a definite influence, but also taken into account are the movements and influences of the other planets too.
In a way this very first international line-up of quality selected bio-dynamic wines could be interpreted as a coming-out of the closet. Keeping a low profile, most of these producers do not even mention on their labels that their wines are organic let alone bio-dynamic.
But the tide may be changing as wine professionals and consumers alike turn to producers striving to make wines with greater harmony on the palate, that express the unique soil, or "terroir", from which they come.