It's hard to believe that anyone can have Nigel's real last name, as in Nigel Greening, and be a famous biodynamic vintner. But that's how it goes.
Greening's Felton Road winery is one of New Zealand's most well known organic and biodynamic producers and during the celebration of organic wine in New Zealand this past week, he weighed in on Zoom for a trade tasting. Here are his comments from the event, which he joined from the UK, where he has been for 16 months, waiting for the rules to be relaxed so he can head home. He responded to questions sent during the online event.
Here's the video or scroll down for an edited transcript.
ON THE ECONOMICS OF ORGANIC FARMING
When it comes to the economics of organic farming, it's not really about the cost of one kind of farming versus the other. Because when you start doing organic or biodynamic farming, you change the way you farm. You change the things you want to do.
And so regardless of the rules, you're not doing the same stuff. With us, it started with Hey, we'll have some chickens, and hey, look, those hills, we need goats on them. And we now only cows to keep the goats company. And, wow, we're gonna have to grow some animal food. And what about making some single vineyard compost?
So what you're doing isn't the same. And that's one reason why it's very hard to compare the cost.
But it's surprising - it doesn't go up as much as you might think.
THE WINE TASTING
The samples of the wines [you all tasted]: I thought all showed that the wines were fairly comfortable with themselves. They weren't trying to prove anything. They were just being what they should be.
LABELING ORGANIC OR BIODYNAMIC WINE
There were quite a lot of conversations going on about the issues with labeling and standards.
We're now 20 odd years into organics. And still most of our wine is not labeled organic.
That's not because it isn't organic. It's because just the sheer grief of trying to deal with all the details of 45 markets, each with their own organic rules and variations - means that in most cases, in this world, people know that we're biodynamic, and have been for 20 years. They know we're organic. So we don't have to put a label on it.
[But] We do in some markets.
ORGANIC VERSUS BIODYNAMIC
One little point within all of this is biodynamic versus organic.
Some people...ask...What percentage is biodynamic? What percentage is organic? You can't really label it or measure it that way because a lot of wineries will be certified in both. And so it's quite hard to pick one from the other.
But in general, within the EU system, you have to be certified with an organic certifier if it's a New Zealand wine, which is a longer story that we won't go into.
So that means that even though we've been Demeter certified for a long time, we had to adopt a BioGro [New Zealand's organic certifier] certification as well, simply because that became necessary. It gets very, very complicated. I can tell you, that's the worst bit.
COVID LOCKOUT
I'm in the UK. I've been locked out to the winery now for 16 months, which is Whoa, yeah, that's not easy. But I'm really, really hoping that I'm going to be able to be allowed back in in January. New Zealand has locked out...[while] other people have locked down. While New Zealand is locked out, and trying to get a slot to get back through biosecurity is so difficult...we're waiting for the rules to relax, so I can get back to the winery. And so I have to do everything remotely.
WHY BIODYNAMIC?
Why did we go biodynamics, not organics, from the start? We started with organics, but I was keen on biodynamics.
And the reason for that was that I'd worked a lot in my past life with the car industry. And I had been really horrified, by the way that they equated quality with fewer defects. They have this generally accepted idea that if you have no defects, you have a quality product. And I thought, That's nonsense, you can have perfect rubbish, you know, it's about quality is the input in a lot of the defects necessarily that you take out.
And I felt that was organics was clearly more like a list of it was more like zero defects. These are all the things you mustn't do.
Biodynamics, for all its flaws - and some of the slightly crackpot areas - was really a philosophy that was focused on here are the things you should do, as opposed to other things you shouldn't do. I liked that.
I'm not sold on all aspects of biodynamics. And that's fine. It's a broad church. And all of us kind of get home or get off the bus at slightly different points. But we all share the same kind of passion for how you manage this ever changing ecosystem of the land.
CONSUMER DEMAND
What is the uptake on consumer demand for organics? The answer to that is I don't know, because for so long now everybody's kind of known that we were. So it's really, really hard for me to answer that one. You'd think there has to be a greater awareness? But it's difficult to know. I think it varies from country to country.
THE FARMER'S FOOTSTEPS
I'll tell you the thing that I find interesting - and that's a thing all the way around the world - that essentially, people who are farming organically and biodynamically in most cases, spend a lot more time physically on their land. There's a saying that a farmer's footsteps are the best compost. And I think getting out of a tractor and actually being on your feet and bending over and digging in the soil with your hands, really thinking about what's going around is something that all organic farmers, biodynamic farmers have in common.
We're trying to unravel this amazing web. Somebody made reference to James Milton's lovely thing, you know: "be careful how you step on my land, you're not standing on the dirt, you're stepping on the roof of another kingdom."
And we're trying to understand that kingdom, the kingdom where one spoonful of soil has more life than there are people on earth. And that's quite cool.
COVER CROPS
What are the most popular cover crops planted in New Zealand for organic vineyards to bring life back into the soil? We go wider and wider. And often it's based on things that we like.
I was getting the guys to plant peas because I wanted peas to pick for lunch. And then we found pigeons came to eat the peas, because pigeons like peas and then we found falcons came to eat pigeons, because falcons like pigeons. And suddenly you've opened up this whole new little ecosystem that you didn't know was going on just because you added some peas.
Cover crops are interesting, but it's often most interesting just to do something nice, you know, do things because you'd like to eat them and then see what else the world likes to eat that comes and plays in your vineyard.
ADIEU
I'll wrap up now. Thanks to everybody for listening. And yeah, I hope to see all of you soon.
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