Biodynamics. Part 1.
The last decades of the 20th century were marked by the revival of biodynamics in vine growing and winemaking under the guise of product purity. People are ready to pay more to get an organic product which holds some allure producers manipulate customers with under the BIO trademark. The hustle and bustle of a hectic life, having to solve mundane questions do not give people any chance of slowing down, pushing the stop button and looking around. Nor do they give any chance of using such a vital asset as time to sort out what biodynamic farming and its products with regard to vine growing and winemaking really are. That is why this movement confidently filled its niche in the global economy.
So what is biodynamics?
The founder of the biodynamics theory was the Austrian Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), educator, lecturer, social reformer, esotery scientist occultist, vaticinator and the mystic of the 20th century Rudolf Joseph Lonz Steiner. He himself never dealt with agriculture, nor did he have a vineyard and as his contemporaries wrote was a confirmed teetotaler. Nevertheless, his ideas had a profound effect on global vine growing.
Steiner enunciated his theory of biodynamics in a set of lectures delivered by him in June 1924. There were a lot of German wine growers among his listeners. That said, Steiner didn’t bother to find any evidence proving his agronomical theory.
The basic principle that underlies wine production following biodynamics rules is that a vineyard is an integrated system of which plants and soil merely constitute two parts along with a variety of others. Everything from plants to animals inhabiting a particular plot of land, water, the sun, stars and the moon inclusive are considered to be crucial factors responsible for vine and grape health. In view of this, biodynamic winemaking is based on careful nature observation and attempts to balance its various components. Biodynamic wine is 100 per cent organic. Besides, a vine grower employs a myriad of specific methods striving to work in harmony with nature.
According to Steiner a plant disease is not to be eradicated, it is an indicator of its compromised immunity trumpeting the fact that urgent measures are to be taken. The task of a biodynamic scientist is to balance the energy of the earth and space and to maintain a plant health. In this case a strong vine will produce fine grapes reflecting terroir characteristics to the greatest possible extent. You won’t have to resort to any artificial manipulations or technological advances in the process of vinification. At the beginning of the century nobody was aware of artificial yeast, reversal osmosis, cryomaceration or any other novelties which appeared in the second half of the century. They are forbidden in biodynamics nowadays. On the whole, from biodynamic scientists’ perspective nobody needs them because wort doesn’t have to be improved. Due to the natural force of wine you can bottle it without filtering or fining it and sometimes without adding sulphur dioxide at all in which case wine will last long and develop.
There are specific substances and methods used in a biodynamic vineyard. Some of them may seem weird to a man far removed from biodynamic farming. Filling a cow horn with cow manure and burying it in the ground till spring comes are constantly ridiculed by biodynamics opponents. Anyway, proponents of this theory believe that such methods make a vineyard more resilient and vibrant contributing to the quality of wine.
Instead of chemical plant protection agents which are strictly prohibited homeopathic dosage of substances based on plants such as chamomile, bark, dill, dandelion or valerian are used to prevent and treat different vine diseases. It is the administration of these substances and the time calculation of administering these substances that distinguish biodynamic winemaking from organic. Some biodynamic scientists take it hard if biodynamics is confused with ordinary organic farming whereas some organics proponents are wary of Rudolf Steiner’s ideas.
As Steiner’s followers claim biodynamics goes further than organic farming. Occult aspects along with philosophies behind them make biodynamics distinctive from organic farming. There are astral flows of energy which plants need to make efficient use of minerals, the effect the Sun, the Moon, the planets of our galaxy and stars have on the growth and interaction of the earth’s living objects. There is water with its “memory”, purposely designed artificial manure containing homeopathic remedy used to fertilize soil and eradicate pests, and, finally, producing biodynamic manure, the particular manure made of a cow horn buried in the ground. The procedure of burying takes place every year on September 22.
So biodynamics is a philosophy rather than a scientifically based way of farming which has been accurately studied.
To be continued…