Biodynamic Bonanza: Better Understanding Steiner's Vision a Century Later

Class transcript:

Biodynamic Bonanza: Better Understanding Steiner's Vision a Century Later.m4a

Love it, welcome, welcome one and all. Uh, we are deep in the dog days, uh, kids go back to school tomorrow at least in DC, uh, I am joined as always by uh, the illustrious Zoe Nystrom, who also goes back to school tomorrow, and is celebrating naturally with a biodynamic wine; it is such a pleasure uh, to have you all uh, in the mix uh, and uh, it has been such a pleasure to see you all in person too um, as the world uh, resumes uh, some kind of uh, new normalcy. Today we are talking biodynamics, biodynamics, a system of farming uh, steeped in early 20th century mysticism; it is uh, a philosophy that grew out of a series of lectures delivered by Rudolph Steiner.

Um, and it is fascinating, for a variety of reasons, for um, the amount of success it has gained among the greatest winemakers in the world, and equally for some of the problematic you know stances that uh its original champion um you know took uh when uh he was kind of building out uh his philosophies uh not often uh addressed but something that you know we don't want to sweep under the rug um it's a fun lesson uh there's a little something for everybody here uh, you got uh, cow horns, deer bladders, uh stomachs, uh yeah, yeah, domestic animal skulls, a little something for everybody and all sorts of uh manure, all the manure. Um, all the herbal treatments, um, you know you wanted compost, we give you uh compost here at uh Sailor Goat Wine School, Revelers, our uh monthly wine club.

Um, we have four wines, um, we are going to kick it off, we're going to kick it off and we're going to kick it off with um, maybe perhaps the most biodynamic of them all, uh, an Austrian uh offering from Mein Klang, Mein Klang in German, uh, my sound. Uh, this comes from you know, I think kind of like the von Trapp family of Austrian biodynamic uh farming, lovely people, um, they make wine at scale by biodynamic standards and it is uniformly delicious and then they uh slap uh adorable livestock. On the labels and we're all for that, so we're gonna start with theirs which is a lovely white field blend from a German BMX rider, uh, that's always fun.

Move into stately Bordeaux Blanc, uh, thereafter kind of the unlikely biodynamic uh white wine, and close things out with a field blend from a lovely mother-daughter team out of Au Languedoc um in southern France, and from a walled vineyard and secret garden, uh, that feels uh hugely consistent uh with the topic of today's lesson, uh, we are in luck, um, everyone, uh, it is um a an auspicious day uh for tasting in the biodynamic, counter is a flower day, um, we'll learn about this as we go but Flower day is good for aromatic wines, uh, so um yeah, we have all sorts of uh biodynamic uh built-in advantages uh for doing this class on this particular date um without further ado um let's kick this off a bit awkwardly um as always wanted to kick things off with uh Austro-Hungarian poet uh because the founder of the biodynamic movement himself uh of course Austro-Hungarian uh this is uh the inestimable uh Róka um as once the wing energy of delight carried you over childhood's dark abysses, now beyond your own life, build the great arch of unimagined bridges; wonders happen if we cannot succeed in passing through the harshest. Danger, but only in a bright and purely granted achievement can we realize the truth to work with things, and the indescribable relationship is not too hard for us; the pattern grows more intricate and subtle, uh, and being swept along is not enough. Take your practiced powers and stretch them out until they span the chasm between two contradictions, for the god wants to know himself in you, uh, so a little suspension of disbelief, uh, required, uh, for the sake of, uh, today's lesson, our 51st.

We are considering wine, uh, in the vineyard and an agricultural regime, uh, that, um, revolves around, you know, not only the scientific, uh, forces. Uh, that uh plants depend upon biologically uh for the sake of uh you know uh perpetuating themselves through fruits that we then turn into wine, but uh the spiritual mystical forces um that uh plants depend upon uh which is murky because not everyone believes in spiritual and mystical forces uh Rocca felt like a fitting choice for today because if you don't believe in uh the mystic it was uh Rocca um and you know I think today even for those of you that are very scientifically you know driven, it's easy to write off biodynamics um as pseudoscience um and a lot of its claims um a lot of its practices are you know kind of scientifically unverifiable um but you know uh for the sake of this lesson um i encourage you to think um you know uh in terms of you know the great mystery uh that is creation and um all of the unknown forces um you know working in the vineyard and the multitude of variables that are interacting there that could never be fully uh unspooled um so you know i think you can embrace the mystical if you know you reconceive it as uh you know that which is beyond our control um that which is beyond the extent of our our understanding and you know i think uh this movement appeals to me um you know in that light even if some of its origins are you know inherently problematic uh honestly um so uh in his book about uh biodynamic wine uh one multi walden uh conceives of four ways to farm so he says they're kind of like four different ways they can set up a farm um you know for the sake of you know um grape vines or apple orchards or brassica or soybeans or anything else uh you've got subsistence those are the ogs uh that's you know we're not selling anything you know this is just ours uh tends to be a very diversified diverse form of agriculture um you know but tends not to be terribly efficient uh for the sake of outputs uh you've got industrial which tends to be very efficient for the sake of outputs but tends to inquire even more inputs uh and tends to uh despoil the land um and tends to uh chiefly not be a sustainable uh regime um uh he identifies organic as the third regime uh that is a regime with issues um industrial and economic uh and economic uh and economic uh and economic uh and industrial chemical um uh kind of treatments uh on the on the vineyard um and then he identifies a fourth uh and that's ecological so the difference between organic and ecological being uh this question of inputs so ecological uh farming he sees as fundamentally self-sustaining uh whereas that is not always the case in an organic regime a lot of organic farms require irrigation a lot organic farms uh you know require uh an amount of fertilizer um or a level of intervention uh that is not fundamentally sustainable from one year to the next and uh he cites biodynamic agriculture as the most important form of ecological uh farming uh he says it's certainly not the only one uh but he sees it uh this being monty williams as uh the most important uh because it is the rare form uh that balances uh inputs and outputs in a very circular uh self-sustaining uh kind of way so uh we name dropped him earlier uh but uh i think it's important uh you get A picture, um, we are talking about, uh, the biodynamic movement and it grew out of the philosophies of one Rudolph Steiner, uh, very Austrian-looking Mr. Steiner, uh, he, uh, delivered a series of um eight lectures and four discourses uh from uh the 7th of uh 7th to 16th of July in 1924 um and uh those lectures uh form the basis of the biodynamic movement uh this is right before he uh perished so uh he shuffles off in 1924 Steiner does so um launching this movement um which he never consciously launched um really it evolved out of these lectures was kind of his uh dying act um these lectures were attended by 111 farmers um uh, the lecture series uh itself uh took place in uh what was then a part of salesia um i know your um kind of larger jordan orbit pre-war war uh two but uh currently uh you'd be in uh poland um and uh it was uh uh organized and put on uh by one count carl von uh kesser link uh carl von kesseling just a great german count name um good on you carl van kesseling um and you know uh i i like the idea that you know this is his residence this looks like what i imagine his manner uh to look like So you had 111 Polish and German farmers crashing at this manor, receiving advice from Steiner about how to move forward, Because chemical farming had denuded their land. So we're going to throw it back to the 19th century. Throughout the 19th century, the world's population exploded. You know, it was this inflection point that began the essentially exponential growth that were, you know, continually to ride today. But agronomists in the 19th century recognized this huge problem. With farm yields such as they were, there was no way that farmers in, you know, with current practice could feed all the people that were being born throughout the earth. Enter the Haber-Bosch process. Very exciting, Haber-Bosch. So they won a Nobel. For basically pulling nitrogen out of the air into ammonia, originally to make explosives in World War I.

So Haber-Bosch gave us, you know, TNT, you know, all the charges that made the Great War, you know, as destructive as it was, but they could also be applied in the vineyard. And that readily available source of nitrogen could kickstart growth in a way that wasn't possible in a conventional farming regime. Unfortunately, this chemical fertilizer had all sorts of, you know, kind of negative effects equally on the land. It tended to pull all of the nutrients out of it. It tended to the excess nitrogen, tended to pollute the local waterways. And it tended to suppress the vine's natural ecological defenses. It threw the whole ecology of the vineyard entirely out of whack and made the plants essentially dependent on the aphids who were reliant on the vine.

It went on ever higher amounts of nitrogen from year to year until the land itself was totally exhausted and they had to move on. And it was destructive enough that a group of Polish farmers essentially came to Steiner and asked him, you know, how can we work against this? You know, how can we find a way to farm sustainably in this modern era? Which of course begs the question, why they come to Rudolf Steiner? Well, they were all anthroposophists. That is a long word. Anthropophysy. It comes from a Greek origin, essentially. So Anthropos, which refers to the wisdom of man. But you need to know a little bit about the man himself to understand why he would have been chosen as the savior of the world. He was the savior of these particular farmers.

So Steiner born 1861. He's born in Krasnovec. That puts you on the border of Hungary and Croatia in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father was an Austrian stationmaster. His mother was a maid. They both used to work for a local nobleman. He was an incredible student by all accounts. And went to Vienna's foremost technical college. But from an early age, he acknowledged in himself this clairvoyant power and this spiritualist tendency. He was tied to the most modern advances of the era through his father's position as stationmaster. But because he was essentially in the countryside, stationed with his father, he also had access to this peasant civilization that hadn't evolved at all since the Bronze Ages. So in this kind of biodynamic biography, this is like the endorsed history of Steiner.

They say from the beginning he was surrounded by the most recent achievements of civilization, railway and telegraph. Yet he also found himself in the mountains among peasants whose way of life stretched unchanged into past centuries. And he speaks glowingly about the wonder of creation growing up amidst these mountains. And so, in as much as he has a scientific mind, his kind of eternal goal is squaring it with his spiritualist tendencies. He studies Goethe, and he has this kind of road to Damascus moment when he encounters this local herbalist. And he meets him on the train. And his name is Felix Gokulski. And to Steiner, he represents an instinctive clairvoyance of an earlier era. So, he's studying science and technology in Vienna. But he comes from this more agrarian place.

And he comes upon this like-minded who kind of takes him back to his childhood in this kind of Austro-Hungarian idyllic earlier era. And at that point, he kind of doesn't go back to that fully scientific worldview. He says, you know, I am doubling down on this, you know, kind of spiritual philosophy. And his goal becomes to, you know, kind of quantify a spiritual science that includes both spirit and matter. So, he wants to make verifiable spiritual claims for the world, which is inherently problematic. But he gains a ton of followers. And it becomes this huge movement, particularly in World War I. The anthroposophical movement, it's a lot of syllables, itself, though, evolved out of the German Theosophical Society. And the Theosophical Society had all sorts of concepts, which Steiner himself enthusiastically embraced, that had to do with reincarnation and spiritual advancement.

One of Steiner's most, you know, famous contributions to the world is the Waldorf School. Waldorf Schools, in the Common Era, whatever their merits, are centers of anti-vaccination movement. That is because Steiner viewed illness as something that essentially perfected the soul. And vaccines interfered with that perfection. And vaccines interfered with, essentially, you know, advancing through, you know, higher orders for the sake of reincarnation. Sadly, there was a racial element to this kind of reincarnation program that was, you know, essentially eugenic. So in his lectures, these are the ones that the biodynamic farmers of the world don't like to talk about. Steiner writes: The Black or Negro race is substantially determined by these childhood characteristics. They are where the formative forces of the earth impress permanently on man the particular characteristics of later youth or adolescence, and determine his racial character.

We continue northward and then turn in a western direction, of course, toward Western Europe. A third point or center is reached what permanently impresses upon man the characteristics of his adult life. So Steiner recognized a hierarchy of races that saw, you know, Black Africans essentially as childlike people, Asians as adolescents, and Western Europeans, particularly Nordic Europeans, as, you know, the highest order. It's not hard to find a through line there between, you know, the Theosophical Movement and Nazism. And a lot of people from that society ultimately dabbled in and became about Nazis. Steiner breaks with the Theosophical Movement when he founds Anthropophagy in 1912. He does that because Theosophical Society kind of takes an eastern turn. They find this Indian kid and they say he's the reincarnation of Christ. And Steiner's uncomfortable with that and wants to turn west and wants to double down on this empirical, you know, program that he sees for, you know, kind of quantifying and enumerating, you know, these spiritual forces he recognizes in the world. At that point, he writes less about race, he talks a lot about nationalism and is deeply critical of it, which is hugely popular as the world suffers from the overdevelopment of nationalism throughout World War I. He talks about liberty and cultural life, you know, equality of rights among the advanced races, and fraternity in the economic sphere. And he gains all sorts of adherence. This is kind of a self-improvement model of sorts and it extends through to all different spheres of life. So it is less a religion as such than more of an early 20th century kind of Scientology thing. I don't know that most anthropophysists would identify it that way, and there's no alien overlord talking about an afterlife for the sake of, you know, the anthroposophical movement.

But, you know, in terms of its origins, in terms of where this whole biodynamic thing came about, you know, there are some original sins that are important to talk about. Which brings us back to this 1924 conference. So, in 1924, what Steiner does is he essentially codifies all this Eastern European farm wisdom that he has seeped up throughout his life. And I think the most remarkable thing he does is he talks about, and is one of the first people to talk about in a modern context, what would become ecology. He tries to understand the vineyard as an organism. And, you know, I quite like the quote to this form. But he said that a farm comes closest to its own essence when it can be conceived of as a kind of independent individuality, a self-contained entity.

Every form ought to aspire to this state of being self-contained. This state cannot be achieved completely, but it needs to be approached. This means that within our farms, we should attempt to have everything we need for agricultural production, including, of course, the appropriate amount of livestock. So he recognized this way in which all of these different spiritual actors, and he saw plants as equally important to our spiritual life as, you know, cows or sheep or pigs. And he wants to understand how they interact, and he wants to, you know, ensure the viability of that entire organism. And it should be said at this point that the organic movement, which was launched by another British noble in Great Britain in 1939, evolved out of the biodynamic movement.

So the biodynamic movement is really the first organic movement of its kind in the world. It gets forwarded by multiple acolytes of Steiner's after he passes away. And biodynamics really practically is all about nine preparations used to sustain life on the vineyard. Without further ado, let's taste our first wine, though, because it is absolutely delicious, and I can't think of a family that is a better show pony for the sake of what biodynamics has to offer. So this is Austrian. This is from Mein Klang. They are in Bergenland, so they are essentially on the Hungarian border. So Bergenland is this big region right here. This is massive inland sea called the Neusiedler Sea here. And Mein Klang works wholly biodynamically. They say their form of agriculture is called a wine garden.

They do all sorts of things to ensure biodiversity in the farm, and they work in a very hands-off manner in the cellar, which is something pretty consistent for all biodynamic producers. You will rarely see a biodynamic producer inoculate a wine. You will certainly see biodynamic producers use sulfur, but they tend to lean a lot more natural. Because why would you go through all that work for the sake of not intervening chemically and then throw additives at a wine? This is made in tank, which is actually a pretty modern style of production under pressure. It's a blend of Pinot, Zweigelsen and Riesling Frankisch, and it was first produced by the winemaker, or this cuvée, this particular vintage. She styled out for her wedding. The Miklick family, they were directly inspired by Steiner's philosophy.

And for them, they see the focus of running farms that form part of the environment. And the ultimate objective of their farm is to develop into a well-balanced individual entity. So they are all on board for the sake of both the spiritual and pragmatic dimensions of the biodynamic program. That's not true of all biodynamic authors. Some people are just involved in the more pragmatic outcomes. But I think for the sake of the Miklick family pictured here, again, the biodynamic von Trapps, you know, they are just all about the totality of Steiner's vision when it comes to their wine. Zoe, I know you've had this one before. What do you think about it? I always liked how kombucha-y it was. Very like sour cherry, sour strawberry, sour patch kid, and it can be as well.

Very light effervescence, but super fresh and lovely. We had some really good comments towards Watermelon Jolly Ranchers. Oh, totally. It's like a bowl of fresh strawberries. Just super light, wonderful summery, fruity, but dry. I love that. I equally love that this is a wedding wine because I could see just drinking straight from the bottle at a wedding. I mean, it's like a perfect wedding wine. You know, nobody wants to shell out on champagne. You know, not for a hundred people. You know, this is something you could throw back. It's festive. It's fun. You know, it's wildly refreshing, and I think, you know, for the sake of these wines, you know, biodynamics is an expensive way to work the land.

It's a labor-intensive way to work the land, but it's something that you can still carry off and turn out wine at a reasonable price point, you know, which is worth celebrating. You know, at the very least, regardless of what you think about, you know, the philosophical origins of this movement, it's pretty inarguable that biodynamic states are not contributing to human misery or environmental degradation. I mean, regardless of what you think about the pseudoscientific claims they make for the sake of their treatments, which we're going to have fun with shortly, you know, they are not poisoning the earth. That is pretty fucking undeniable. You know, and it's one of those great questions. You know, if your intentions are good, does it matter, you know? There's this great homeopathic thing.

So health outcomes are better for people that are positive. You know, what does it matter why they're positive? You know, they could be worshipping an alien deity, and you know, that would contribute to their positivity. But does it matter, you know, why they feel good about themselves if, you know, the outcomes are, you know, favorable? No, it does. But it is a question worth indulging, I think, for the sake of this exercise. Because certainly a lot of people kind of can choose the biodynamic practices that they engage in, and certain people are invested in the practices themselves, but not invested in the underlying philosophy. Did you have any thoughts? Zoe and I were talking before we came on about Steiner's eugenic tendencies. Did you want to add anything, Zoe?

Yeah, it was really heartbreaking to find out just how awful all of his other philosophies were, after only knowing him in a viticultural sense, and then, you know, a few years ago reading into everything else that he had said, and just gave me such chills. I think that, not to jump onto a soapbox, about Rudolf Steiner at this point, I think we've made that point of how awful and atrocious it is, and perhaps even worse, how he normalized certain language that then got perpetuated in and outside of the wine industry. But it’s more the focus now of saying, like, well, biodynamicism is one way that you can have, like, a regenerative farm, and having a regenerative farm is really the point, and regenerative means that you're going to think of the farm as a whole holistic single organism.

You're there for the microbiome, whether that's promoting diversity or promoting crop rotation in certain ways, and that you're tilling your farm, either not at all or minimally. And these things are the true practices, and then, like I said, if you're going to put some crystals in the earth, in and around, an ox horn that's filled with manure, and then, like, bless it in whatever way during a specific lunar cycle, that doesn't matter, and that doesn't necessarily make the wine taste better, that doesn't make the wine any better in terms of sustainability as well. So just trying to find, like, the real things that were out of the pseudoscience, I guess, is the main soapbox that I think that most of the industry is focusing on now, and how do we actually put parameters on that so biodynamicism can be less of this, like, witchy thing and more of a practical way to make your farm work in the best way for the earth.

Zoe, for your sake, do you think that we can embrace biodynamics without embracing Steiner, or do you think they are, you know, too conjoined? I think you can. I think you don't need to do any of the, like, varying special crystals and rocks into soil, and I think that it doesn't matter what you believe in your heart while you're doing that, because are you, and I'm saying, like, you as, like, the whole family, right, so, like, taking, like, my time, like, they work in the farms with their own two hands, but they also have a staff of, I have no idea how many people, and so, like, are all of the people that they employ to work the land, do they all feel that in their heart?

And if they don't feel it authentically in their heart, does it make it less real? Or are they working for a paycheck? Because they like to work with one. Yeah, I would say, like, a true anthroposophist would say that, like, if somebody's not all in, then it poisons the spiritual well, you know, but I think certainly a lot of more pragmatic, biodynamic practitioners would say that, you know, at the end of the day, you know, the fact that these practices are implemented is paramount. So, Zoe name-dropped a lot of the more mystical elements of the biodynamic treatment program, and we're going to dive into those now. Because biodynamics postulates the farm as an organism, and it considers those regenerative processes that Zoe spoke to so elegantly.

But it equally, you know, posits these different treatments that can and should be used to ensure soil health and plant health. And this is where we get into pseudoscientific territory. So, the two most important preparations, and they are numbered, they were numbered by one of Steiner's followers after he delivered his lectures. There's all sorts of, so it should be said that the anthroposophical movement was banned by the Nazis. There are a lot of people at Demeter who point to that to, you know, clear their conscience. The reality is a little murkier, because there's some evidence to indicate that the anthroposophical movement was banned more for political reasons than for philosophical ones. But, at any rate, it was eventually banned in 1939 by the Nazi regime and didn't really recover in Germany and elsewhere until after World War II.

But you have two treatments that really are at the center of the biodynamic program. And, you know, you really can't practice biodynamics without these. And, you know, I think biodynamics gets thrown around as this marketing vehicle, and people don't understand everything that underlies it. And when people say biodynamic, this is what they're talking about. You know, it feels like the episode of South Park where I say, 'this is what they believe.' But this is what they believe. And I think, you know, again, that for the sake of that suspension of disbelief thing, we should withhold judgment. Especially for the sake of, you know, some of the homeopathic preparations. You know, they you know, I think there's more there that has yet to be, you know, kind of worked out.

Zoe, I'm sensing, is more, you know, on the cynical side of the equation for the sake of the relative merits of bearing things in horns. But we will talk about why they do that now. So most important preparations, 500 and 501. 500, inarguably, is the most important preparation. It involves bearing cow manure in a horn. This has to be a cow's horn, mind you. Not a bull's horn. They are different. Cow horns develop more slowly. They are spiraled. And they are thicker. And because of that, they have all sorts of life-giving properties for the sake of biodynamic advocates that thinner, unspiraled bull horns do not. So don't get it wrong. In a perfect world, this would be your cow from your farm. Not just some cow from some farm.

Again, we're doubling down on this whole sustainability thing. You get your horn. You get your manure. Please do not cut the horn off a live cow. That is verboten in the biodynamic system. The horn itself is a spiritual organ along with the hooves for the sake of the cows. You have to wait until Bessie dies to pluck said horn and utilize it for the sake of preparation 500 or 501. You fill your horn with fresh cow manure. You pack it tight. You bury your horn. Ideally, in an existing biodynamic vineyard. You bury it in the autumn. You pull it up in the following spring. What you're left with is this pretty remarkable patty of activated manure. I'm going to pull up a picture of this is the 500 big reveal.

You can see the cow horn in the background. That's what you're left with after several months underground. You get all this microbiota that is honestly just now being fully understood for the sake of how these organisms, these single cellular organisms work on compost, feed on compost, create regenerative life. That is just now being fully understood. We have this patty that you then apply in the vineyard. You don't apply it directly. We are not rubbing this at the feet of our vines. We are doing what's called dynamizing this. It gets even. Come on. Stay with me, people. You take a small quantity of your patty. You put it in water. Then you have to stir for an hour, ideally by hand, in figure-eight motion, switching directions every so often.

That is to dynamize the spiritual forces in your treatment. This is a mechanical dynamizer because nobody wants to sit there for a fucking hour and dynamize their treatment. True believers would say that the hand-dynamized treatments are more effective, but this is a chemical alternative. There are all sorts of pseudoscience regarding the vortex in water as a spiritual force in the life of these treatments as something that uptakes oxygen in a way that would otherwise be possible. There is scientific truth to that. Stirring water will supercharge it with oxygen, especially if you're doing it for an hour, especially if you're sticking it in this thing. Then, in drips and drabs, you would apply this ultimately to your vines, ideally in the fall through the following spring.

This treatment, 500, is said to be very important for the sake of life underneath the ground. It has everything to do with ensuring the viability of the root structure and the plant as it grows up. The structure, your vines dig deeper, they are healthier. Now, 501, different story. Zoe namedrop silica. Again, I should have this flashing, but again, this is what biodynamics actually reports. In lieu of our cow dung, we powderize silica, which is hugely important in terms of the nutrient uptake of plants. We load that in a horn. We bury that on a different calendar. We bury that in the spring and then we pull it up in the fall because of the earth forces working on said silica. Then we aerosol this stuff over the top of the plant.

The thought goes that it is auspicious, and you're doing this typically from spring through the end of summer, auspicious for the physiological development of the foliage of the plant and for its natural immunological defenses. Those are the two most essential. I'm going to read you. For the sake of the biodynamic true believers, this is what they would say about silica 501 and 500. While horn manure 500 influences the lower part of the vine and its roots, horn silica 501 influences the upper part of the vine. Namely, it shoots leaves and the wine grapes. While horn maneuver 500 is sent to work when the afternoon sun is approaching the yard and then sprayed in thick drops on the darkly and heavily tangible earth, 501 is mistily waft into the bright intangible atmosphere to yank the vine shoots upwards as the morning supports the influence coming from the soil as a result of the horn manure which you've already applied.

Horn silica thus represents a concentration of forces within the sunlight. And there are a lot of people who double down on the cow patties but aren't sufficiently liberal with the horn silica. That is a big bugaboo for the sake of biodynamic devotees. There's another treatment, 508, that we're not going to talk about much. It's common horsetail. It's another kind of silica adjacent thing that comes from this fungus that grows like a more traditional plant. It's there. It's available. You can use it. For the sake of the biodynamic program, really the essential ingredients for these treatments are 500 and 501. Those are your go-tos. You're going back to the well. These are your biodynamic treatment soldiers. In a perfect universe, you would make them yourself.

It is; you can get certified as biodynamic if you purchase treatments as well. But in a perfect universe, you should be performing these rituals yourself and producing these treatments yourself. Now that we know all about 500 and 501, let us move on to Inderloof. Very fun. We're in Germany here. Germany, actually, this center, the major certifying organization for the sake of biodynamic space in Germany is Demeter. It grew directly out of the biodynamic movement for the sake of this particular offering. You are in Württemberg. You see Baden-Württemberg. You are as far south in Germany as you can get without being in Switzerland. In this case, kick-ass small grower and kind of a fun trajectory for the sake of this producer that's not unheard of.

I think this is what intrigues me about this movement because to say this stuff over Zoom, it's hard not to be incredulous. But then to walk the fence, to see the way the plants respond every day when you're working with these treatments is something else entirely. So you have a grower here who's one of the most revered young growers in Germany who has kind of natural, he brought his farm out of the local co-op, they converted to organics, and then they converted to biodynamics from there. So you see that with a lot of growers. They'll start working organically because they understand the merits, and then they start working Having recognized that, they go a step further because they want to work ecologically. I just like the shirt. But this is Jochen Brewer.

This is Inderluft in the air, and that is him on a motorbike in the air, the Riesling Slut himself. This is just a delicious summary wine. Zoe, have you had this one? I have not. You've got to stop by and grab a bottle of this. Is it supposed to be sparkling? It is. It's got a little spritz to it that is a common German-Austrian thing that is entirely intentional for wines bottled with lower amounts of sulfur. That extra little spritz too tends to protect them from inviting any microbiological bad actors. This is lovably natty wine, but fruity and fun, festive, you've got Riesling, Chardonnay, and Gewurzt in the mix, and some other native German varietals. I think maybe not the serious German Riesling that connoisseurs of it would want to drink, but just like a killer tavern wine at the end of the day.

You need to sell these shirts, I'll be talking. I know. I will go on a deeper dive for the sake of the merchandise. Any questions about treatment 500, treatment 501, Zoe, or any other attributes of this particular offer? Can we talk a little bit about why a horn is chosen, not any other type of bone or tail? Excellent question. You think about the spiraling tapering forces the horn has, it is seen as, and there's biological actually, there's a biological basis for it, because animals with healthy horns tend to be healthy themselves. It takes quite a bit of energy to effectively grow a horn. Because it tapers the way it does and spirals the way it does, it is seen as a center of spiritual energy for the sake of the advocates of anthropopathy and biodynamics.

This predates Steiner's movement. Again, what he did essentially was to take all of this folk wisdom that he grew up with, these stone-age-like farmers' practices, and pick and choose the ones that he wanted to perpetuate under his own banner. Fascinating. Let's say that you don't have cow or horn to pack and put the sale yourself. Where is the Amazon or what is the Amazon for cow horns packed with either manure or with silica depending on the year? You can purchase the ready-made treatments. You can buy the ready-made treatments. You can get anything online. I'm sure you can get a cow horn. Again, best practice is your cow's horn. All the treatments for newer biodynamic states are things that they can purchase. You can still be Demeter certified having purchased your preparations as opposed to having made them yourself.

Certainly don't get the cool kid bonus points of cheating. I feel like when you're hanging out with other biodynamic producers you just have to stay quiet about the fact that you're not making your own treatments such as this. A lot of other things have slid in terms of the wine industry. I feel like that's the least of the concerns. I feel like we have bigger fish to fry. We've got two treatments under our belt. But wait, there are more. We have yet to talk about 502 through 507. These are compost treatments. These are supercharged composts. Compost is hugely important for the sake of the biodynamic program. Steiner said that in compost we have a means of kindling a life within the earth itself.

Something that is cool about Biodynamic Treatment 500, in particular, is that it is typically when it comes out of the ground pH neutral. It has an ameliorative effect for the sake of soils that are acidic or basic, bringing them back toward the center of the spectrum, and having a moderating effect for the sake of the local soil type. Compost is essential and Steiner is such a huge advocate of ensuring sufficient organic material in the vineyard that he developed different preparations for the sake of compost. You've got compost as a single entity and then these are like special composts. We'll take you through it. We've got Yarrow, which is said to bring potassium and sulfur to the vines. Your Yarrow compost is situated in a deer bladder underground. That's 502, 503, you've got chamomile.

It's a nitrogen fixture. We're after bovine intestine for the vessel on that one. Stinging nettle soil structure apparently needs no vessel. Oak bark it's good for the illness prevention for the sake of the vine and calcium as a nutrient. Domestic animal skull; you give you a lot of room there for the sake of your preferred containment vessel. I don't know if that's just pet cat that gets repurposed or any livestock but domestic animal skull is the vessel of choice. 506 dandelion important for regulating and contributing salicylic acid to the party. Calmescentary. I had to look that one up. It's the second stomach of the cow. Bovines being ruminants, they've got a ton of stomachs. Mesentery is one of them. No cow stomach will do or specifically after calmescentary for the sake of this one.

Valerian, which Zoe referenced earlier is at home in any vessel apparently or no vessel at all. Important for phosphorus uptake and fruit formation for the sake of the biodynamic program. Ideally, you would work with your own compost and be adding these individual adulterants and making these individual super compost yourself. Again, I want to reiterate that Steiner wasn't envisioning a movement himself. He was making a series of suggestions. He shuffles off the coil and the banner gets taken up by the people who continue to evolve the practice of biodynamics. Much of what we consider biodynamic dogma is well after Steiner's death. For the sake of the treatments, that is equally true. A pioneering biodynamic advocate, a German woman named Maria Thun, developed her own compost which was essentially a 502 through 507 hybrid.

She says, 'Fuck this. I don't have time for this shit.' We're just throwing everything into the mix. It's called barrel compost. It's kind of interesting. She throws eggshells into the mix first with her dung and mixes that all up until it's fully homogenous. Then she just throws yarrow, chamomile, stinging nettle, oak, dandelion, valerian, everything at the compost in a wooden barrel. That's what she is, this super compost is ultimately what she's applying in the vineyard. It should be said too that biodynamic advocates, there's not necessarily one and true way of doing this. There's actually a lot of contention within biodynamics about whether you should dry your compost and apply it that way or whether you should keep it moist at all times, which is really hard to do.

There are people on both Camp Dry and Camp Damp. This is very much a spiritual practice with people who are invested in different ways and at various levels. I want to pull up our next wine, which is from Bordeaux. You have these centers of the biodynamic movement. We mentioned Austria and Germany. Those are the usual suspects. Bordeaux, certainly not the usual suspect. This was from Bligh. Bligh is a historic center of the wine trade in Bordeaux. Most people don't realize that the Bordeaux we think of, which is the Omadak,

classified in 1855. Those are the big names, counterfeit, enjoyed by those illustrious few who can afford them. The Omadak was underwater until the 17th century when it was drained by the Dutch. Well, prior to that, the merchants of Bordeaux were turning out amazing wine in Grave and Borg and Bligh. Deep winemaking roots less heralded. You hear a lot about Red Bordeaux. You tend not to hear as much about Bordeaux Blanc but it is a gorgeous wine when done well. The blending partners here, Sauvignon B and Semillon. It is hugely novel to see a grower in Bordeaux. They are Château Pays Bonhomme Les Tours. I don't feel cheated by the Château. This feels like a very appropriate Château for Château Pays Bonhomme Les Tours. They got the tricolors flying. The gate game is strong.

I feel really good about the wind vent. We are checking all the boxes on my Chateau checklist here. Been in the same family since the late 19th century. They make kick-ass wine. They are the kind of noble, well-meaning people that wanted to do things differently than pretty much everybody else in Bordeaux. Bordeaux is very much a wine lake. It's a center of petrochemical farming. There is so much potential here. It's inarguable that the switch from conventional industrial agriculture to biodynamic farming makes better wines. It just does. Biodynamic advocates talk a lot about that. The thing that they identify is that it naturally lowers yields, that it naturally lowers alcohol levels, and that it makes their vines more resistant.

Whatever you think of the scientific merits of the individual treatments, a lot of growers, especially on the ground, will acknowledge that all of those things are totally fucking true. This is where I think it is important, once again, to acknowledge where our scientific understanding can be outflanked by our knowledge on the ground. These people working day by day in the vineyard this way have a level of intimacy that gives them access to truths that are not yet scientifically verifiable as such. I do not know if I want to endorse the cow mesentery, but there is something here for the sake of the quality of the wines. Zoe, this is one of the wines that we were supposed to introduce for the sake of our spring list once upon a time.

What do you love about it? I loved how elegant and amazing it was. It is beautiful, really pale elderflower petals, and a lot of Chablis-like fruit with that lactate yogurt back to it that gives it a really good tart mid-body to it. It ends so clean, so fresh, a little salty. Just gorgeous. It has this great lemon curd, lime zest; you certainly get a presence of oak, but it is a wine that wears it really beautifully. I think when these wines are done well, they remind me in their own way of white burgundy, but vibrating on a very different wavelength in terms of the opulence. They bring you the table, but the elegance coupled along with this. There is something noble, regal about this wine.

I love the idea that you have this estate that has championed these methods in a region where people tend to be very cynical and very suspicious of working the vineyard this way. It gives it a really good mid-body as well, attributes to that weight. I think that the aromatics are gorgeous because of the Semillon, but then it stops there, and then the rest of it drinks more like a really posh Savvy bee to me. You definitely get that bright snap to attention for the sake of there is a little bit of this underripe tropical fruit thing happening, but great minerality, great length. Just a really gorgeous wine. Every vintage of it that I have had a chance to have. Any thoughts about this particular wine, about the relative merits of different vessels for biodynamic treatments?

Just a lot of jokes about the biodynamic system, and just about everything about the biodynamic system, because it should be made fun of in a way. We are definitely venturing into tinfoil hat territory, but again, I think for the sake of these wines, hopefully the proof is in the pudding. The proof is in what goes into the glass itself, and the way that the land is worked in a very regenerative way. I think that much is possible, and I can get on board with a little pseudoscience for that sake, if that is what it takes for us to get there. There has not been a lot of work trying to scientifically isolate the relative importance of treatment 500 versus treatment 501.

It should be said that is something that Steiner encouraged his advocates to do, but there are just so many variables to introduce for the sake of how the land is worked. That is hard to isolate a single variable for the sake of that kind of work. I sincerely hope that curious growers continue to do it, because I will say every winemaker I have ever talked to who has made the switch from organics to biodynamics have said that the plants are more disease resistant. My friends in the Finger Lakes at Herman Diemer, I was up there during a really shitty harvest, 2018, and they had one biodynamic block, and they were speaking to how much better that biodynamic block survived all the rain during harvest than the adjacent blocks, and that had everything to do with the fact that the grapes had thicker skins and better immunological defenses.

And then the fruit itself, when it comes in without fail, tends to have higher acid and lower potential alcohol. All of which, if you love elegance in wines, if you love physiological, mature purity in wine without overbearing alcohol levels, are things that we should be championing. So this is where I come back around, and this is where I want to wear a tinfoil hat, and track down bovine intestine, because it does work. I think the bigger question is, why does it work? And then I think an important program is understanding how it evolves, look.