Biodynamic winemakers say their methods make better wine that's kind to nature
Nicolas Joly is just getting into his breathless stride. "We are rediscovering things we have forgotten . . . It is a return to the old knowledge." It is his second performance of the day, in the leafy confines of the Brook Lodge hotel, in Co Wicklow. And the well-preserved, rangy 62-year-old is full of beans - a wonderful advert for his adherence to nature's ways.
The organic-food policy of the hotel's Strawberry Tree restaurant makes it an ideal venue for a presentation on the value and values of biodynamic winemaking by one of the leaders of the movement. Since the 1980s Joly has advocated the movement inspired by the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner's unorthodox views on agriculture. His signature wine, Coulée de Serrant, made from Chenin Blanc in the Loire, is renowned for its distinctive flavours and style, prompting the critic Stephen Brook to comment that since 1995 "the wine has been magnificent".
And yet his own wines get little mention in his long but entertaining discourse, sprinkled with spindly diagrams. It is not that they don't matter - on the contrary, he explains, how much he is looking forward to getting back to his vineyard - it is just that they are small print compared to the big picture of the biodynamic wine movement, which is spreading throughout the world, "even in Brazil".
There is something both affecting and compelling in his enthusiasm for this return-to-basics philosophy. Biodynamic winemakers want to return life to weary soil by cleansing it of chemicals and renewing it with "preparations" made with what seem like medieval ingredients and processes. In addition they believe, as The Byrds sang, that there is "a time to plant, a time to reap . . . and a time for every purpose under heaven". But that spiritual dimension is not agreed by all who follow the cause, many preferring to stress the role of the planets and the seasons and their ebbs and flows.
Becoming a biodynamic winemaker is no easy task. The vineyard must be certified by Demeter, an ecological association, which applies standards rigorously. It also costs money, both to be certified and to change your land to biodynamic practices, while the cost of production is substantially higher - out go labour-saving devices such as tractors and chemical sprays and back come the humble horse, hand-harvesting and homeopathic treatments. This inevitably is reflected in the cost of the bottle on the shelf.
For Joly this is a small price to pay for wine that truly reflects the terroir. He reserves special antipathy for the chemical companies and those who, he believes, betray nature by tarting up their wines in the cellar. "There are two positions on cellar work, almost totally opposed to one another. One position is that of total interventionist, in which case the cellar takes on the appearance of a laboratory. The second, you simply listen to what is happening, and actions are very measured and very few. In this case the cellar is a womb."
In his view Bordeaux deserves to be in the dock for the way it has treated its terroir, and he claims that the chateau owners have tried to silence him. Certainly, Bordeaux has not taken to biodynamics with the same gusto as Burgundy and Alsace, where leading producers such as Domaine Leflaive and Domaine Zind-Humbrecht, are among its adherents.
Joly may be a believer - he distrusts chemical companies so much that he withdrew his children from school rather than allow them to be inoculated - but many in the wine industry consider biodynamics a load of mumbo-jumbo and those who follow the cause as basically bonkers. The rituals may provoke mockery, but it is hard to argue against more careful husbandry of nature's bounty or against ending the huge chemical influence over viticulture. Certainly biodynamics does not magically improve a poor winemaker or a dismal site, but mounting evidence indicates that it can make a good wine better.
As Joly has written in his idiosyncratic way: "At a time when our atmosphere is becoming denatured and cannot transmit to the earth the impulses of the solar system, it is indispensable to reinforce these exchanges [ allowing nature take its course]. It is for this reason biodynamics triumphs in viticulture around the world. It is not a question of trends but real effects on taste." jbreen@irish-times.ie
Nicolas Joly's wines are available through Febvre, 01-2161400, www.febvre.ie