Voodoo Vintners
Oregon’s astonishing biodynamic winegrowers
Katherine Cole
Preface
Wine writers play two roles: that of the reporter, and that of the critic. We are expected to publish reliable information as well as knowledgeable opinions.
So let me begin by informing you what this book is not: it is not a review of wines or a compendium of useful information, such as you might find in a wine guide. Instead, it is an examination of an inscrutable topic.
I first became aware of biodynamic viticulture sometime around the year 2000, when I moved to Oregon and began tasting local wines. I remember being struck at that time by a pinot gris that was quite unlike its peers: crisp and clean, it reminded me of the pure water you might drink from a mountain spring. I would later discover that it had been made from biodynamic grapes.
A couple of years later, I met the charismatic Jimi Brooks, a figure who appears repeatedly in the following pages, and whose riesling, at that time, had that same mountain-spring purity that I had noticed earlier in the pinot gris.
Brooks was one of those wickedly funny, effortlessly likeable people who could convince just about anyone to try just about anything. As vineyard manager and winemaker for Maysara Winery and Momtazi Vineyard as well as for his own eponymous label, Brooks, he pursued biodynamic viticulture with his typical enthusiasm. Jimi convinced me and many others to take a closer look at this unusual style of agriculture.
Touring Moe Momtazi’s property with Brooks, I was struck by the tumbledown appearance of the place. It looked wild and alive—so unlike the neighboring estates, with their neat vine rows of brown-and-green corduroy. As I wrote at the time, “The access road was hemmed in by swampy ditches and weed-laden mounds of percolating manure; farther up the steep, rutted alleys of Maysara’s Momtazi Vineyard, sheep, chickens, cows, and horses ambled through untamed fields. Patches of brambles and poison oak harbored coveys of quail. And rambling rows of vines were accented by corridors of crimson clover and purple vetch.”
I was shocked to find Brooks carefully tending stands of nettles and horsetail—in my estimation, noxious weeds. I thrilled to see him stirring these weeds into teas, using a witchy-looking twig broom, with a mischievous grin on his face.
But this was Oregon, where it’s typical for a local to complain that she’s having a bad day solely due to the position of Saturn in the sky. In the Oregon wine community, Brooks was just one of many off-thewall characters making wines in an unconventional way.
Then I began reading more about biodynamic viticulture. I learned that some of France’s most respected vintners were pursuing the practice, and that the goddess-like Lalou Bize-Leroy, of Domaine Leroy in Burgundy, had spoken on the subject at the International Pinot Noir Celebration in McMinnville, Oregon, in 2001. Could biodynamic viticulture be a serious, worldwide movement? Burgundy’s best vignerons were doing it. So, increasingly, were Oregon’s best. I discovered that the headquarters of the American biodynamic movement, Demeter USA and the Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association, are both based in Oregon.
(An aside here: Demeter USA has trademarked the words “Demeter” and “biodynamic” so that they don’t become diluted in the manner of fuzzy terms such as “green” and “natural.” These registered certification marks protect consumers, biodynamic producers, and it goes without saying, Demeter USA. If estates without Demeter certification market or label their wines as “bio-dynamic,” they risk legal action for trademark infringement. I have attempted to make clear in the following pages which properties are Demeter certified and which are not. However, executive director Jim Fullmer has been kind enough to grant me fair use of the terms “biodynamic” and “biodynamics” to generally describe the farming techniques associated with this practice.)
In the ensuing years, I found myself repeatedly defining and describing biodynamic viticulture for the benefit of fellow wine lovers. Their questions and interest sent me searching for books on the topic. To my dismay, I found very few. There were gardening manuals, a valuable but encyclopedic tome by the British wine writer Monty Waldin, and the original transcripts of Rudolf Steiner’s 1924 lectures on the subject. There were, also, ruminations by the quirky Loire Valley vigneron Nicolas Joly, who has been an effective spokesperson for the movement, but whose baroque verbal stylings do not exactly lend themselves to easy comprehension.
Looking over this array of dense texts, I was flummoxed. Why wasn’t there a simple, readable, enjoyable book on biodynamic viticulture for the everyday wine lover to flip through and enjoy? And why shouldn’t this book focus on the trend from the perspective of Oregon wine country, where the biodynamic practitioners were a colorful bunch with plenty to say? A story was forming in my mind, a story much larger than one that could be crammed into the occasional newspaper column.
It was at this time that I was approached by Mary Braun of Oregon State University Press and invited to submit a book proposal. I sent her an outline of the story of biodynamic wine in Oregon. The Press kindly accepted my proposal, and I set to work.
Over the course of the following year—during which I continued with my regular commitments for The Oregonian and MIX magazine, as well as my duties as the mother of two small children and the wife of a very busy, if very supportive, husband—I got into the habit of jumping into my car and cruising out to wine country whenever I could find an extra half-day, and ducking into my office to type whenever I could find a spare moment. By the year’s end, I had this: a book about biodynamic agriculture as seen through the lens of Oregon viticulture.
Thanks to its cow horns, moon phases, and cachet, biodynamic winegrowing makes for a compelling story. But I hope this book also expresses my admiration of all the Oregonians who toil in the vineyard and tinker in the cellar, no matter what style of winegrowing they are practicing.
This book is about anyone insane enough to be buffeted by the Willamette Valley’s famous rains eight months out of every twelve. It is about the organic, the sustainable, and the conventional vignerons. All are foolhardy enough to make pinot noir in Oregon; it is just one small step from this level of risk to that even more foolhardy form of farming, biodynamics.
I have an emotional response to the very best wines. Like the very best books and films, they make me weep. My regular readers know by now what sorts of wines make me cry: They’re usually lower in alcohol, higher in acidity, more mineral, less ripe. They’re tense and electric. And, of course, they reek of terroir.I don’t know if biodynamic agriculture is the key to unlocking terroir; I suspect a number of factors count, starting with the suitability of the site. Still, some readers might wonder what I think of biodynamic wines: Do I prefer them or dislike them? Do they make me reach for the Kleenex box? My answer is this: biodynamically farmed grapes make fascinating wines. They also make banal wines. The same is true of conventionally farmed grapes, organically farmed grapes, and everything in between.
The pragmatist in me is suspicious of the biodynamic movement.
While many of its farming practices and ecological premises appear sound, they come packaged with a lot of extraneous spiritual baggage that I can’t help but view cynically.
However, I must admit: as someone who drives a stick shift when she’s not getting around on foot or by bike, I feel camaraderie with anyone who prefers to take the more arduous path to arrive at his or her destination. It may not be the most efficient way to get there, but it is, in my experience, always the most pleasurable.