Ceago Vinegarden is a bio-dynamic winery. It is run by the Jim Fetzer and they have recently put some bottles under the Dynamic Vineyards label. I enjoyed the Mendocino Red which ran nine bones.

Amazing episode and amazing guest. The world needs more people like Mr. Joly.

I was happy with the wines I was drinking but Gary’s show has encouraged me to try and expand my palate, leading me to take even greater pleasure from the wine I am drinking. However, I am still unhappy that so many great wines from California, like those I tasted on a recent trip to the Russian River Valley, have not made it to stores in the UK. Sort it out people.

Loweeel, with all due respect, I believe you need to cool down a little…

I have worked in the restaurant business for over 20 years, and in wine particularly for over 10 years now, and have become really interested in biodynamics through tasting alone.

Have you ever tasted for a wine contest, or visited a wine trade fair? I tell you, after a few samples of BD vs. the same amount of samples of non BD wines(not to mention after 80 or 90 wines) you can tell there is a difference…

Or why do you think that more and more of the top producers of the world are turning BD, and some of them don’t even market it? Keep your mind open…

QOTD – Happy to continue learning, some wines make me happier than others (a lot of it just seems to taste the same though, don’t you think?)

Tks Gary, well done!

apj_bobswineguy/Andres — no.

The problems with BD aren’t the vineyard management — it’s the mystical pablum that they’re trying to pass off as “revealed knowledge”.

Thus, it is incorrect to compare BD to the class of non-BD wines; instead, the relevant comparison is between BD wines and organic non-BD wines that don’t have the new age crap added to the glass. Moreover, you’re also failing to control for the quality of the winemaker and the quality of the vineyard — it’s like comparing Blue Hill’s beef and chicken to McDonald’s.

Tasting of BD vs. non-BD wines is anecotes, not data, because you have failed to isolate the independent variable of its new age hokum. It compares apples to pop-tarts.

And andres, it’s simple as to why some of the top producers are turning BD — it sells, whether or not it’s marketed, it’s whispered. You can’t spell “Bandwagon” without BD, and some producers are seeing the success of this “deep green” marketing scam and wanting to get in on it sooner rather than later. The fact it that BD proponents have deluded consumers into believing that it (rather than vineyard management, winemaking skill, or superior fruit) makes a wine better, and it thus commands a price premium in the same way that Fair Trade coffee does at starbucks. As Tim Harford explains (using Fair Trade at Starbucks) in The Undercover Economist, it just identifies a segment of the market who will pay more to feel ecologically/morally superior.

My mind is open to logic and reason, cause and effect, experiment and data, none of which the BD proponents have provided. It remains closed, and always will, to mystical mumbo-jumbo, pagan fertility rituals, and new age bullshit like the preparations that violate Avogadro’s number and assert a “water memory” against any evidence, the astrological harvesting/racking cycle that purports to rely on an basically-non-existent gravitational effect, baseless fire days and earth days, and attributes crop issues to mystical creatures like gnomes, sylphs, and undines.

There are NO arguments in favor of biodynamics that hold any water beyond common sense, organic farming helping to make the vines work harder, and paying attention to the grapes. It’s not one of those “both sides have points” things — to illustrate, please add one half-tablespoon of fresh (actual) bullshit to a half-gallon of your favorite ice cream, stir thoroughly, and then consume it.

Why won’t you? It’s a compromise by definition, and one that relies so little on the bullshit. The problem with BD, much like the ice cream example, is that the bullshit permeates everything else to the point where the winemaker refuses to separate it from the valid points (i.e., organic and paying attention). But it enhances the allure and mystique to point to magic and attribute their success to mystical forces and a communion with quasi-divine entities.

It’s marketing, plain and simple. It’s no different from critter labels.

QOTD: No. I would love to be able to drink so many more good wines for cheaper costs.

Loweeel:

I own 3 vineyards and a small winery in Oregon. I will not say where or our name, as marketing is not my goal in responding to your comments.

I started Biodynamic farming in 2006 in one of our vineyards, as it is 35+ years old and had started to decline. I did so as I had seen others in the area have success with restoring vigor to vineyards using BD techniques. I was already farming organically since 1998. I am not certified organic or BD, as I do not follow these practices to market, rather because I think I can make the best wine this way.

After observing our vineyard react to the BD farming techniques for over 3 years now, I have clearly observed the positive effects of these practices. The vigor has returned significantly to the weaker parts of the vineyard.

There is another vineyard immediately adjacent that is not farmed biodynamically. As a specific example of a single-variable experiment: Last week I was touring my vineyard as part of early season planning. We had significant gopher damage 2 – 3 years ago, so we undertook a BD technique called ashing. It is designed to discourage the pest from being in your farmed area. The gopher holes are now evident all around the perimeter of our vineyard, but the stop at the edge of our vineyard. Immediately adjacent, the next vineyard, which did not benefit from the ashing technique, the gopher holes continue all throughout their vineyard!

Same soil, same terrain, everything the same, except the ashing.

There are other examples we have seen like this from other BD techniques we have tried, this is but one example. I have seen another vineyard heavily infected with Phyloxera, that has been ‘brought back’ through application of aggrssive biodynamic techniques. Everywhere else Phyloxera is a death sentence for the vineyard, it must be pulled out and replanted.

There is absolutely no doubt that this works. If you would like to come to Oregon I will happily take you for a tour of these results.

Bill H
Willamette Valley, Oregon

Deep Deep D E E P. Very intellectual show – but w/ lots of passion

QOTD: Yes but I would like to see more wines be a purer expression of
their terroir and less manipulation

QOTD: The probability of encountering a wine with no character is much higher than finding a with “charisma”. Now, is that a reflection of the maker or the drinker? Lets not let the consumer off the hook here. Many people consume wine purely for intoxication and/or have no interest in reflecting on the nuances of a coulee de serrant. So it seems there will always be the mass wine made for the masses. For those who do wish to reflect on nuances, wine should reflect the terroir. Biodynamism and less post harvest manipulation seems to help this audience achieve that goal, so therefore should be embraced more uniformly.

QOTD: It’s a very good question because honestly I haven’t been as happy lately. I don’t know if I’ve just been buying badly but it’s true.

Loweeel,

I can agree with you that there is marketing thrown in into BD, just as with everything else, and that a number of producers are not serious and only trying to cash in on the trend. But that shouldn’t prevent us from recognizing the quality of those producers that are turning out really good wines.

On the other hand, in my opinion producers like Joly, Trimbach, Zind Humbrecht, Leflaive, Chapoutier, Marcel Deiss, Josmeyer, Pingus, Leroy, Prieuré Roch, Nikolaihof, Cullen, Castagna, Frogs Leap or Bonny Doon, for instance, were all already pretty well known to embrace BD just for mktg reasons -and some of them have been working on this for over 20 years before BD started to recognized,too. I am sure a lot of people knew about the quality of these wines well before they realized they were using BD.

In the past few years I have heard Bill H’s story one hundred times. I have seen soil studies of a producer that has been organic for decades, has tested BD, and realized that the parcel that he treated with BD for two years is looking better than the one next to it that has been treated organically for over ten years. How can you explain the enhanced microbiological activiy in the BD treated soil, if all other variables have been cancelled?

Also every time you talk with a producer like my friend in Mendoza, or Bill H in Oregon, or Joly here, they talk about quality of the fruit and health of the vines, never of “mystical creatures like gnomes, sylphs, and undines.” They will tell you that the position of the planets has an influence in liquids, yes -but then again it is widely acknowledged that tides are influenced by moon phases too.

You can read Philippe Armenier’s entry: this doesn’t mean that BD producers don’t run scientific studies of their soils, either. It just means they apply different procedures, not that they rely only in “pagan rituals”.

As for tasting BD vs non BD, I have to say that a high percentage of the non BD wines -organic or not- has similar tastes, which actually makes sense: they are made out of 3 or 4 clones chosen out of 3 or 4 grape varieties, fermented with the same yeasts, made in similar ways and using the same oak barrels, even the same wine consultants quite often. I have had both good and bad BD wines, but they are usually “different” wines.

Lastly, they are not necessarily more expensive, either: take Jean Pierre Amoreau, for instance. He is one of the most fanatics out there, his winery passing from one generation to the next for centuries, adding almost no sulfites to his wines or not adding them at all, yet his wines can age for decades. And what is the retail price of his Ch. Le Puy from Cotes de Francs just behind Pomerol in Bordeaux? 14 Euros…

Nicolas, to be honest, I am not satisfied with the wines I drink. I very much feel as you said “i am at dinner with someone who is very smart but has nothing to say”. I like it very much that you compare wine with music. I feel that now the things I am drinking are Haydn’s 94th very calm and quiet or Vivaldi 4 seasons, when I am looking for more of a Beethoven 5/7, Mozart 39/41. I want things that are powerful yet restrained, refined, well thought out and prepared, “bring the thunder” but also will not kill me like a Beethoven 9

Nicolas Joly is a GOD! I am so behind what this man has said in this two-parter. Profound. Fantastic Ep.!

QOTD: I am happy when I drink wines that are a little quirky, a little unique, and have some texture, flavor, or aroma that SETS IT APART from other wines. I find I am underwhelmed and bored with wines after the first half glass if it doesn’t show its individuality and make me continue to smell and try to pinpoint what its unique flavor or aroma reminds me of. Wines need to be more unique! Wines need to be more unlike all other large production wines that are well made and taste like other examples of that varietal or region. What’s even worse is when wines from regions steeped in tradition and history taste like any other new world fruit bomb with no sense of that fantastic, unique place!! I tasted a 2004 cult Ribera del Duero that was 15.5% alcohol and tasted like a blackberry jam fireball. Ribera? Tempranillo? Well made, yes. Pricey, I’m sure. Unique and representing this beautiful historic region, not even close.

Very happy with the wines I drink.

Happy with the wines I drink? Sometimes I am, sometimes I’m thrilled and sometimes I’m just satisified that I have the time and the means to drink a glass of wine that may or may not be satisfactory. If I hate it I won’t drink it and that rarely happens because most of the wines I have I bought sfter tasting them at the wineries. But yeah sometimes I drink a wine that’s good, but there’s nothing to it… I’ve only had bio-dynamic wine from one winery so I will be looking out for those.

GV – I have to tell you that this may have been my favorite show of all time. I was intrigued with NJ’s philosophy about wine-making and life. Would love to try the Chenin’s as well.

QOTD – Oui et non! J’aime bien le vin qu’est natural. Mais quelquefois je ne peux pas trouver les vins biodynamie!

Not really – I’m finding in Australia that a large amount of homogenisation is occuring, especially when you get big companies buying smaller ones and changing or charging a fortune for wine xyz, which was once a great buy, or worse changing the way it’s put together.

Great Show Gary! And, a great guest who I admire.

QOTD: I seek out wines that are interesting and are made usually in an organic or biodynamic way by farmers and very small producers. Therefore, I am usually quite satisfied with the wines that I drink and am rarely disappointed. I prefer not waste my energy on wines that I don’t like or that are poorly made.

I certainly very much appreciate the call for knowledge, logic and reason, experiment and data when it comes to Biodynamics. Science is part of our most noble achievements in our culture and should never be dismissed. Now the problem is that, within the scientific community itself, the debate rages about the contributions brought during the 20th century by men like Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr and David Bohm in the fields of relativity and quantum physics. For modern physics stipulates that the invisible is at the heart of the visible… while the application sciences still largely base their thinking upon the findings inherited from the 19th century, and thus try to explain the invisible in terms of the visible, in terms of experiment and data solely. By definition, the field of knowledge of the latter is true and valuable, but limited and reduced to the Finite. By definition, the knowledge of the quantitative and mathematical formalism can’t bring the understanding of the qualitative changes. And the warnings of the modern physicists are numerous which call for the reunion of knowledge and understanding, quantitative and qualitative, science and consciousness: see for example Hans-Peter Durr, nuclear physicist and former director of the Max-Planck-Institute of Physics in Germany.
There is definitely a knowledge about Biodynamics which can be issued from the Euclidian geometry. Or from arithmetic and the rational numbers of algebra. But Biodynamics only begins to get understandable once one enters into the fields of the non-Euclidean geometries, or of the irrational numbers of calculus, or else with the Chaos Theory which all are concerned with the Infinite. Studies like the ones brought by Ernst-August Muller and David E. Auerbach from the Fluid Dynamics Research of the Max-Planck-Institute entirely backup for example the processes of dynamisation and chaos used by the biodynamists. One of their conclusions stipulates that: ” when one elaborates by Biodynamic dynamisation the Biodynamic preparation to be pulverized on the land, one creates a product that vivifies the soil.”
We can’t therefore but be thankful to all modern physicists,astrophysicists, scientists and farmers who have had, over the past few decades, the courage and honesty to reconsider the old restrictive paradigms of science. They are helping us to open our focused vision to a more peripheral one which embraces many possibilities.

QOTD: Profound question indeed… I’m not happy with the incredibly high prices of Californian wine, however, I’ve been very satisfied in the value I’ve been finding in South America. I have never had a biodynamic wine but I’m very intrigued after watching these episodes.

Amazing 2-part show Gary! Nicolas Joly is astoundingly interesting and entertaining. Please bring him back to talk about anything.
QOTD: I would have to say yes, but that is certainly a loaded question. One day I could look back and say “Wow, I was drinking crappy wine in those days.”
I am happy with the wines available as long as there are solid wines to be found under the $20 mark; and there certainly are! Of course the PA Government forces big limitations on my options… I guess they know what’s best for me.

QOTD: I think the action of drinking wine makes me happy, especially when I am among good company, and I also think that the fundamental idea of what wine is also makes me happy, but am I happy with the actual wines I drink? Sometimes, but I am always learning, and trying to find new wines that speak boldly and inspire all of the senses.

That was fantastic I have to go and visit!
I am happy sometimes with the wine which I drink. Cheers

Oh how I want to like his wines…he has one of the greatest sites in the Loire, yet his wines, up until recently have sucked….and they have sucked at a very high price point.

BioDynamics? No thanks I never talk religion when I drink wine.

I love to hear Nicolas talk about his wines. This video is awesome Gary. I remember my first Coulée de serrant and frankly, i was stunned. I tasted it every half hour for the whole evening and everytime it was changing. It’s like tasting 10 different types of wine for the price of 1 🙂

This guy is a monument.