Bio-dynamic Farming Catching On In The Northwest

GENERAL NEWS 

By Anna King

Richland, WA  April 10, 2008 4:45 p.m.

You might have noticed a new term on wine labels -- it’s "bio-dynamic". That means growers might have planted the grape vines with the cycles of the moon, sprayed nettle teas on the vines and buried animal parts in the field. More than a dozen Northwest wine makers have adopted the unusual farming style. But other growers are skeptical it yields better wine. Correspondent Anna King reports from the vineyards outside of Richland, Washington.
  
Armenier: "So what we want to create is this very nice vortex and the chaos."
 
Philippe Armenier rolls up his dress shirt. Then the towering Frenchman starts stirring a tub of water with his massive arm.

Armenier is teaching the managers of Hedges Family Estate how to make a tea of horsetail herb. The vat of brew has to be stirred by hand first in one direction and then in the other for an hour. This needs to happen during the correct phase of the moon. It will be sprayed on the ground in between the vines. This is an element of bio-dynamic farming. And Armenier makes his living by teaching Californian, Washington and Oregon farmers how to do it.

The Hedges hope stirring teas, using nasty smelling concoctions made from cow stomachs and pruning with the phases of the moon will distinguish their wines from the crowd.
 
Christophe Hedges walks through the vineyards to check the soil with Armenier. He says he’s totally bought into the new regimen.
 
Hedges: "We are trying to capture that sense of place in our wine in its most raw form. Wine is you know subjective and so and we like that concept. That gives us an open playing field to try to express the wines in its most natural state."

The Hedges aren't the only ones going bio-dynamic. So far, two other well-known vineyards in Washington and more than a dozen vineyards in Oregon have started using the practice. Bio-dynamic farming is a method of organic farming that was founded by an Austrian philosopher named Rudolf Steiner in the early 1900s. Bio-dynamic farmers enrich the soil and control bugs with a mixture of manures, teas and even by burying things like red deer bladders stuffed with yarrow flowers. The Hedges switched to bio-dynamic farming last year, but estimate it will take one to two more years to become certified by the international association called Demeter.
 
Allan Schreiber doesn’t grow grapes. But he is an organic farmer and head of Washington’s Commission on Pesticide Registration. He says he’s skeptical of bio-dynamics.
 
Schreiber: "I think for the most part most of the tenants of bio-dynamics are more closely associated with astrology and pseudo-pagan-witchcraft and have little merit in modern agriculture."
 
But Schreiber admits that bio-dynamic products like wine may have some advantage on the marketplace.
 
Schreiber: "It's a marketing tool. It is simply a marketing tool. If organic isn't enough or if organic is becoming too cliché, too saturated, too over used and you need another marketing tool, well bio-dynamics is something that you can use."
 
But what about the taste? Can you tell the difference between bio-dynamic wine and conventionally grown wine? Seattle wine shop manager, Jeff Fisher, says at first no. He’d be stumped in a blind tasting. But then, on second thought, he reconsiders.

Fisher: "From what I taste I feel that the wines are better. Even though that contradicts what I just said earlier. But maybe it’s just all in my mind that I know that these producers are caring about their little spot in the world and are trying to make it a little better."
 
Fisher is stocking more varieties of bio-dynamic wines in his store in anticipation of more demand.
 

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