One of my pet peeves is the lack of education in the wine industry on how to become organic or biodynamic.
My first encounter with U.C. Davis was an ampelography class with Andy Walker. Across the way was the university's first organic vineyard demonstration project but - what a mess. Someone had accidentally sprayed chemicals on it and it would be three years before it could be considered organic. Such was the support for organic wine grape growing at Davis. (I hope this description no longer applies). Instead we visited the "conventional" vineyard, where we saw first hand how fungicide in the fertigation line could perk up a vine overnight. Until then I had not know that the plants were being forcefed.
Therefore, it is with great joy that I saw that CCOF and Demeter had partnered to bring a little bit of biodynamic education to organic growers last week in an online webinar. Now the webinar's been posted to YouTube so you, too, can enjoy it. If you are more interested in farming practices than certification, skip ahead to the presentation by Rudy Marchesi of Montinore Estate in Oregon whose talk and slides focus more on the farming aspects.
Rudy is a down home guy who has been farming wine grapes (and making wine) in the Willamette Valley since 2004 on more than 200 acres. Today he is the board chair of Demeter USA. I posted some photos from his presentation earlier this week.
Before touting Biodynamics please read a little about it founder. http://www.waldorfcritics.org/articles/Staudenmaier.html
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing. But biodynamics is not really just about Steiner. Most wine growers in the U.S. respect him but none are followers of Steiner's religion called anthroposophy including the winery members of the board of Demeter USA. They also have no affiliation with Waldorf schools. You say on your website that Steiner left behind a large amount of literature on biodynamics - he did not. He gave 8 lectures on the subject and asked a young researcher, Pfeiffer, and his followers to research the basic ideas he laid out. They are more properly credited with being the inventors of biodynamic farming. The fermented manure spray - 500 - has been in use since ancient Roman times (Cato mentions it in the earliest known writings on viticulture) and the herbal sprays owe much to Steiner's passion for herbal traditions, which he learned from Felix Koguzki. He revered peasant farming knowledge and the traditional farmers almanacs (which showed moon cycles, among other things). Most wine growers are not as dependent on astrological rhythms as the people who grow food crops that follow annual cycles. Many of the herbs Koguzki was knowledgeable about and that Steiner mentioned can be found in early 1800's viticultural manuals from France. So in speaking of biodynamics, farmers, who are among the most empirical and practically minded of all, have field tested biodynamics and do not rely on Steiner's lectures, which many find to be impenetrable. If you rely on written sources you will miss the main event - which is how this stuff works and when farmers find out that it works for them, they use it. In the U.S. Demeter USA has never required biodynamic growers or farmers to use the calendar. (BTW, the calendar was not invented by Steiner and is not embraced by most US BD vinegrowers). Farmers and wine growers find and choose the tools that work best for them, based on experiences.
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