If you want to live a green life, or even a good life, it helps to know about biodynamic wine. Many of the top producers in the world are turning to this earth-friendly style of viniculture. The problem is that very few consumers know what biodynamic wine really is. Like the word literally, the word dynamic is so overused that it literally means nothing. My Concise Oxford mumbles something about “active, potent, energetic” and I suppose this is about as good as it gets for our purpose. Biodynamic wine is wine that’s made with an awful lot of attention to the life energy in the wine. And if that sounds a little fluffy, it is.
Like Anglicanism and Catholicism, biodynamic and organic wine overlap in so many respects that they are often confused by less spiritually developed people. Both are made without any chemical fertilizers, fungicides, pesticides or genetically modified grapes. To be certified organic, the wine must be made without sulphur dioxide, a preservative used by 99 percent of wineries in order to stabilize their wines. Sulphur D. sounds nasty, but it’s virtually essential and its noticeable absence is one of the reasons why organic wine often has a bad name.
Biodynamic wine may have sulphur dioxide in it, but in all other respects, it goes far beyond the commonsensical requirements of organic farming. That’s because Biodynamism is the brainchild of a German occultist and polymath named Rudolph Steiner (one of his architectural designs is pictured above). Steiner believed that any fruit (including grapes) can be supercharged with life-sustaining energies that arise from the earth, the zodiac and the planets. These energies can be drawn into growing plants by spraying them with homeopathic mixtures made from herbs, manure or minerals that have been primed for this purpose by maturing them in the horns or innards of various animals. In this sense, biodynamic wine isn’t really an item on the vegetarian menu.
These elaborate alchemical preparations are spread on the crops on various solstices and moon phases. The theory behind biodynamic wine is a soufflé of astrology, Aristotelian physics and Feng Shui. Steiner’s method bears an uncanny resemblance to sympathetic magic — for example, if you want your vines to bear rich fruit, you use herbs with a “solar” nature and you apply them on days when the sun is astrologically dominant. It will not surprise you to learn that Herr Steiner got his ideas from clairvoyant conversations with the spirit world.
With so much flimflam, it is tempting to dismiss Biodynamics as nothing more than a silly fad for New Age winemaking. Indeed, I am almost incredulous that anyone takes it seriously. And yet, biodynamic wineries are crafting some of the world’s best bottles (like the Nicolas Joly I reviewed last week). So what is up in the spiritual world? We’ll discuss further next week.
Matthew Sullivan is a civil litigator in Toronto. He blogs weekly here on lawandstyle.ca. The Short Cellar column also appears in the print edition of Precedent. Matthew can be reached at matthew@lawandstyle.beta-site.ca. Follow along on Twitter: @shortcellar.
Photo by J Lord