Is biodynamic Wine-growing a Myth or a Reality?
by Nicolas Joly - Coulée de Serrant
There is no doubt that more and more fascinated private individuals
and professionals are discovering a source of complexity, a surge
of vitality, and an additional purity in the increasing number of
biodynamic wines; There is also no doubt that this type of agriculture,
which differs from biological agriculture insofar as it adds very
small amounts of preparations per hectares, quantities varying from
one to one hundred grams, that have usually been dynamised in water,
can upset those who try to understand it.
How can such small quantities have any real effect on the quality
of wine? Wouldn't the result be the same with simple biological agriculture?
Etc.
Faced with these questions, the group of those in favour and those
against puff themselves up by publicly making boasts on a regular
basis, as behind the scenes both sides prepare for battle. In order
to pass from the profound convictions which generate belief to knowledge
and thus a more rigorous demonstration, there is finally a step to
be taken here. It is on this approach that partially depends the authenticity
of the quality of our future wines.
Let us begin by observing the corpse of an animal that has just died.
In a few weeks its simple elements will again be part of the earth.
Thus the question to ask is: where are the energies which constructed
this organism in such a sophisticated manner? Who took the calcium
to sculpt the bone? Who took the silica to form the hair? Don't these
forces exist in other ways besides forming embryos? A seed, an egg.
Are they not only receptacles of a perfectly organised world of energy
which the forces of life give to Earth, which exists independently
of their link with matter, through which they become visible?
By asking these questions, we enter as do every day a few more physicist,
thanks for example to magnetic resonance, into the discovery of laws
that are very real and concrete, but are no longer, so to speak, terrestrial
laws, in the sense that they are not submitted to the force of gravity,
to this world of weight and volume discovered by Newton.
It thus concerns laws that can not be measured in the same way. In
the third edition of my book ?Wine From Sky to Earth? now available
I four languages, I devote an entire chapter to a presentation of
tests, which are well-known in certain circles, that give images of
this world of energies in the wine and the food, and the manner in
which different types of agriculture can modify them. The microscope
does not have access to these realities. What must be understood here
is that living beings are only a sum of frequencies or rhythms. It's
a vibratory world. There is no life without frequencies and mini-frequencies!
Our society and each one of us use this vibratory world on a daily
basis, through satellites, portables, transmitters, microwaves, etc.
We use it to such an extent that it becomes a problem, as this abundance
of new frequencies disturbs those frequencies which influence life
itself. No one is surprised to hear the voice of someone thousands
of miles away on their portable. With the help of the portable, the
call did not even use a thousandth of gram of waves. For waves are
not to be measured by weight. When one speaks of biodynamic agriculture
in terms of a few grams of preparations which act as relays or catalysers
of precise processes indispensable to the life of plant, a life which
we have seen is not tangible, those who have not become aware of the
energy world they use every day become offended. Let's be serious
about how many grams of quartz make your watch work for ever a year.
So why shouldn't a biodynamic preparation based on quartz accelerate
photosynthesis, which generates the sugars, the colours, the aromas?
Why wouldn't the preparations destined for the earth accelerate mycorhiza,
that is so to say, the linking of roots with earth? A branch of the
Swiss government came up with proof supporting that. For 18 years
they compared the two agricultures: conventional, biological, and
biodynamic. On the other hand, it is understandable that they multiply
the use of all these toxic chemicals. To be convinced, you need only
read the small print on the labels. They inundate the vines and the
soil with fungicides, with chemicals to prevent rot, spiders, pests,
as well as herbicides. Each treatment strangles a little bit more
the link between the forces which influences our lives and quality.
The result, dear wine-lowers, is three comments that are very important
for the quality of the wines with which you stock your cellars:
1 - The use of chemical treatments, as
we have just seen, reduces the capacity of the vines to receive solar
energy through their leaves and earth energy through their roots,
and there is no way to avoid this increasing. Each additional treatment
necessary to control disease ? which are not yet recognised as deficiency
indicators of strength and health ? will bring about collapse on a
large scale, which will in turn necessitate more treatments. It is
understandable that for wine-growers caught in this dilemma, technology
will be the only way they can have at least an appearance of quality
in their wines. Their wines can thus be imitated in countries where
labor is cheaper. On top of that, their capacity to age as they should
is greatly diminished.
2 - The so called ?agriculture raisonnée? would
be satisfied with where the use of the very toxic chemicals is reduced
by about 20% does not constitute any real progress on the level of
the life-forces the wine needs to remain in good health and to manifest
its appellation. This explains why more and more choose biology or
biodynamic as the only method which effectively links the vine to
its environment.
3 - By using this world of energies more directly,
biodynamics takes a very important additional step, thereby
considerably increasing the possibility for the vines to receive the
characteristic of the appellation this providing the basis for what
we love in a wine. Also thanks to its special relationship with the
life-forces, two or three years of biodynamics can wipe out the harmful
effects of herbicides. It takes biological agriculture several decades
to reach the same goal. This was proved in Australia when land saturated
with DDT, which had been declared forbidden to cultivate by the government,
was opened to cultivation again after three years of biodynamics.
I could speak of all this at great length. Thus more and more serious
wine-growers will continue to swell the ranks of biodynamics, even
if attempts are made to ridicule them directly or indirectly, in order
to preserve lucrative economic markets. Let us add only that to pretend
that biodynamics is not effective is to be part of yesterday's world.
Unfortunately today's world is just as alarming. The world of energies
is an organised world that can be used either for good or bad. Biodynamics
uses it without trying to modify it.
Not everyone has the same scruples. All the more so since control
over this domain is almost impossible. Already one sees secretly for
sale at 5000 euros a litre energised water, which does incontestably
change the taste of wine in a way that is as real as it is artificial.
And physically there is nothing added! Even if these deceptive effects
can bluff any one of us, they are not really durable and can even
invert. There is no doubt that the by-products of technology have
already begun to touch the new energetic world.
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