Margie, the vineyard manager, has been explaining biodynamics to us by pointing out various cover crops she has planted, showing us cow dung that has been treated and buried in a cow horn to be used to treat the vineyard, and explaining how biodynamics is very similar to homeopathy for the vineyard.
Additionally, the vineyard where we are working owns the only Soulo (www.soulo.co.nz) packaging machine in the southern hemisphere. Soulo cups are individually packaged and sealed glasses of wine that can be used for concerts, sporting events, night clubs, etc. It seems like a pretty cool idea, they also have recently patented a new cup design that actually looks like a wine glass and the plastic packaging is durable and clean, very similar to glass but much safer. Here's a picture of a Soulo bottled/packaged today for a Japanese company:
It’s been cool to actually do something that relates to winemaking while we’re here and very interesting to learn about biodynamics and how much work really goes into them. We’re still slightly skeptical: when asked about how to prevent oxidation in the bottle with sulfur add limitations in organics and biodynamics we never really got a direct answer. There seems to be a lot of faith and not a lot of chemistry behind biodynamics and I just don’t think we’re the kind of people who can do that much work just based on what seems to be a religion. I definitely respect it though and acknowledge that there are probably tons of things that are out there that are beyond human comprehension and biodynamics may very well tap into one of them and ultimately work better than other viticultural practices.
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