Dynamic dynamists…

Posted on | July 7, 2005

Last week, a lightening passage through a tasting of bio-dynamicists, an «off» at Vinexpo.

Dark room, sunken, noisy, but very clean, total disorganisation, astonishing mix of hyper-professional tasters and Baba-types in sandals and ‘churidar kurtas’. This should have been «hyper-closed off » anyone can go in. The ambience reminds me of Saturday mornings in the 70s in shops like «La Vie Claire », where as a child, I went with my father. Everyone spoke of «wholemeal bread», «vegetarianism», «chloride and magnesium», «wheatgerm» or «acupuncture». I listened, with wide eyes, and at that time, it all appeared just guff, kind of «sect-y». So will the day of bio-d arrive? Will it be recognised as a modern techinque, every-day, even « normal» ?

I don’t know. Whilst waiting, I become excited tasting some of these wines.

But others make me down and I can scarcely hide my repulsion in front of white wines which turn brown or red wines which are, frankly, sour. Give up, I don’t dare to make comments to vignerons who seem so sure of themselves, proud of their product (sic).

I think back on a saying which I read on a forum about computer processing:

«It’s better to fail doing a good thing than to succeed doing a bad one» - Guy Kawasaki «Apple Evangelist»

That seems the credo of certains «bio-d». Obsessed with dogma, they seem to totally forget what is for me the unique objective: to make good wine, to have pleasure. The manner (the method of cultivating) is this more important than the end (the result)? But what good is all this energy, principles and dreams if, at the end, the wine is foul.

That evening, I talk about it to my friend Peter Sisseck who tells me, very wisely, «in bio-dynamics as elsewhere, there are good and bad wine-makers. Why should this be any different to the rest of the wine world? » This man is a sage, passionate, who had just spent a good few weeks of instruction at a Swiss Steiner school. He explains nothing, doesn’t try to convince anyone and simply tells himself that he feels more at ease this way. In the face of his 2003, dazzling, unforgettable, I feel like nothing. For this wine, what role did bio-dynamics play?

I feel like I have come to the crux of the problem. Like so many of us, I have a furious desire to believe in the irrational, in nature’s great bounty so perverted by man (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, if you follow me:)) or a form of «consciousness of the earth», our primitive mother. Nevertheless, it’s impossible to break away from my appallingly reactionary character: for me, biodynamics is above all a promise of quality, of superior character, a revelation of the terroir. Confronted with a mediocre bio-d wine, my disappointment is thus immense.

Promise, I am going to make an effort.

Pupil Bizeul, you will copy for me 100 times:

Biodynamics is a means, not an end.

Biodynamics is a means, not an end.

Biodynamics is a means, not an end.

Biodynamics is a means, not an end.

Biodynamics is a means, not an end.

Biodynamics is a means, not an end. ….:)

Hervè Bizeul

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