Thoughts & Thoughts & Observations Observations

Is The Biodynamic WineDrinking Calendar for Real?

Most reading this likely have at least heard of Biodynamics For those that haven’t, the short version is that it is a holistic, ecological, alternative to traditional farming. Some pseudo-science and esoteric practices that follow the phases of the moon. Developed by Rudolph Steiner in the 1920’s it was partially inspired to counter the rising ‘industrialization’ of farming, including fertilizers. Some people think its right up there with horoscopes and Ouija Boards (its protocols include burying a cow horn full of dung during a full moon after all) but there are many, many (hundreds, maybe thousands) of top-flight wineries around the world that follow the practice: Michel Chapoutier, Tony Soter, Domaine Huet, and even the Domaine de La Romanee-Conti among them. These leaders cannot all be wrong.

But apparently the Biodynamic calendar doesn’t apply only to the cycle of the vine; once bottled, wines too ebb & flow with the cycles of the moon, at least some say. Maria Thun was a researcher and an authority on biodynamics. At one point, she decided to combine what she knew of biodynamics with a very highly regarded planting calendar (called the Rulni Calendar) and the pseudo-scientists ran with it. Our pragmatic side says it’s a bunch of hooey.

But our realistic side thinks there is something to it We have all enjoyed a certain wine, only to be less enthralled by a follow-up bottle. Traditionally we would attribute it to ‘bottle variation’ (old adage in the wine biz: ‘there are no great wines; only great bottles’). But as wine peddlers, we will sometimes taste the same wine from different bottles 8 or 10 times a week and by golly, they sometimes show differently.