Quote of the Day: Alan York Quoted in Gerald Asher's New Book A Carafe of Red

Gerald Asher's latest collection of articles is just out - I saw it reviewed in the SF Chronicle wine section recently and ordered a copy which arrived today. Asher will be reading from the book this Wednesday July 11 at Corte Madera. 

It's a compendium of various magazine pieces taken from over a decade and spanning European and Californian wines, mostly.

Inside there's one little piece (from 2000) on organically grown wine entitled A Silent Revolution, which includes a fair amount of misinformation (Asher quotes data to the effect that organic viticulture costs 50% more than "conventional," which is not true), but did contain this one pithy gem I'd like to share on the way biodynamic viticulture puts plants in harmony with the cosmos faster than other methods.

Says Alan York (viticulturist to the star celebs like Sting, and before that Ceago, Joseph Phelps and Benziger, among others):

"We don't know why or how the plant responds to the changing positions of the planets. It's like surfing. There's this force and you try to ride it."