Don't Miss This Article: Biodynamics Goes Big

Hats off to Betsy Andrews and the team at Seven Fifty Daily for this great article about many of the world's biggest Biodynamic vineyards.

The feature builds on the panel of experts who appeared at Demeter USA's International Biodynamic Wine Conference, for the breakout session Scaling Up: Implementing Biodynamic Viticulture on a Large Scale.

That panel featured wineries with more than 100 acres of Biodynamic vines including Eco Terreno in Sonoma, King Estate and Montinore Estate (both in the Willamette Valley) and Emiliana in Chile. The panel was moderated by Dave Koball, who established the 290 acre Biodynamic vineyard at Bonterra more than 20 years ago and now manages Eco Terreno's vines in Alexander Valley.

This latest article includes Gerard Bertrand, in southern France, which has 1,482 acres of Demeter certified vineyards (285 hectares already certified and 315 more are expected to be certified by 2020) - which will make it the largest in the world.

(The second largest is Cantina d'Orsogna, a cooperative in the Abruzzo in Italy with 864 acres, whose wines were poured at the conference Grand Tasting).

Emiliana has 674 acres of Biodynamic vines in Chile, making it the third largest in the world.

In the U.S. King Estate is the largest with 471 (although it only makes about 3,000 cases from these vines alone; the rest of its grapes are blended with conventional grapes purchased from other growers.

The southern Oregon winery was just awarded a Wine & Spirits Top 100 winery of the year and will be featured in the Wine and Spirits Top 100 tasting in October, pouring its Biodynamic wines.

Alois Lageder, another winery attending and pouring at the International Biodynamic Wine Conference is also featured in the article. The northern Italian producer has 135 acres of Biodynamic vines and is converting many of its growers to Biodynamic practices.