Wino: Organic and Biodynamic Wines

One of the things I get to talk and write about a lot in the wine world is something that falls under the heading of “sustainable growing.” It has come to mean grape growing, and really farming of any kind, that seeks to use minimal man-made products in order to foster the growth of the grapes.

Much of the work I do is on California’s Central Coast where an ever-expanding number of wine growers are using sustainable methods. But sustainable isn’t a term that truly defines what is happening in farming today. Ultimately, it’s not a big enough term because the fact is that one can practice sustainable farming and still use man-made products.

Organic farming and grape growing as well as bio-dynamic farming have become more popular and many wine makers are now touting these two processes in their wines. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Organic and bio-dynamic are not new terms.

It was Rudolph Steiner in the 1920’s who brought about the ideas that most farmers now refer to as bio-dynamics. An Austrian philosopher and educator, farmers in Europe came to him in 1924 concerned about the future of agriculture on the continent. Steiner obliged and lectured on a philosophy of farming whereby the farm is as much a closed system as possible.  He extended his ideas about the importance of the individual in society to the importance of the individual farm, the farm as a self-supporting entity and the idea began to include as few outside materials on the farm as possible.

These days, certifying a farm for organic or bio-dynamic labeling is handled largely by a group called the Demeter Association based in Portland, Oregon. “Biodynamic agriculture is an organic farming system that focuses on soil health, the integration of plants and animals, and biodiversity,” said Elizabeth Candelario, Marketing Director for Demeter. “I have heard some say that the promise of organic is delivered in Biodynamic.”

Candelario and the Demeter Association don’t just focus on wine. However, grape growing has become such a pervasive part of farming in the United States (there are wine vineyards in every state in the U.S.), that it occupies a lot of their time.

And while Candelario says that bio-dynamic is the ultimate expression of organic, even those two terms are not mutually compatible. Bio-dynamic farming practices encompass the entire farm from the soil up. “Its strict guidelines go far beyond organic requirements to include biodiversity set-asides, insectaries, livestock integration, closed nutrient loops and the use of homeopathic preparations for vineyards and compost.”

But since wine is, at the end of the day, a pleasure delivery vehicle, the question for the consumer is simple: Do organic and bio-dynamic wines taste better? Taste is subjective after all, and price points will always be a measure of whether or not a wine sells. There is still a market, and it is probably the largest consumer wine market, for wine that doesn’t exceed $10.00 a bottle. Very few of those bottles are going to be from organic or bio-dynamic farms.

The inestimable Alice Feiring, one of the most well respected voices in the wine media told me via e-mail, “On a purely aesthetic level, many wine drinkers get sucked into wine’s romantic vortex because of the way they see the soil’s expression in the glass. If the soil is dead–as it is with conventional farming–there is nothing to express. To many of us, wine grown from organic soils just taste better!”

Wine is after all an organic product itself. It is farming and any good glass of wine begins in the vineyard.

So, here’s a little experiment that I have recently tried myself and it has changed my life entirely. If you have not yet availed yourself of organic vegetables and fruits or even bio-dynamic ones, give it a try. Most major super-market chains now carry a wide variety of organic vegetables. Wines might be harder to come by in a large grocery store, but if you care about drinking wine, you’ll probably want to find a good “bottle shop” or wine store and ask the owner whether he or she carries organic and bio-dynamic wines. Do a comparison side by side. Get a bio-dynamic Pinot Noir and taste it next to a non- bio-dynamic Pinot Noir.

The same can be said for your food choices. The revelation for me was when I cooked an organic free-range chicken on the grill right next to a non-organic chicken. Both were whole chickens and I prepared them both the same way, the ubiquitous and, may I add, manly “beer can chicken.” But when I ate a piece from each chicken, there simply was no comparison. Eating the organic chicken prompted me to say, “oh-that’s what chicken is supposed to taste like.”

Whether or not you’ll have the same experience with your wine I don’t know. But I have certainly found that organic and bio-dynamically grown wines exceed their counterparts in taste, structure, mouth-feel and in every other way.