Does Biodynamic Work in the Vineyards Hurt Wine Quality?

I don't think it "hurts" the vineyard, but one of the critiques against biodynamic is that they use cow manure from feedlots to put in the female cow horns. The problem is that the feedlot cattle are injected with drugs to deworm them. That's still in the manure when the biodynamic farmer puts it in the horn and buries it.
The manure, in effect, becomes turds o' death for many types of worms in the soil. Steiner's biodynamic system is a closed system where people used manure from their own farms. The vineyard people break that cycle when they go outside to buy their manure. I don't believe cattle were dewormed in Steiner's day.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
Nobody has suggested that becoming biodynamic has hurt the quality of a vineyard's grapes, so I don't think that's the question being begged by the Biodynamic thread.
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You think there's only one question being begged in the Biodynamic thread?

Where's that professor when you need him?
 
The point about Biodynamics is that it is entirely anecdotal -- the best of it is old farm wisdom.

So many farmers talk about the way silica treatments have energized their vines and made their wines more mineral and with better acidity. This is purely anecdotal and non-verifiable in a scientific way. The fanaticism of some biodynamic spokespeople is easy enough to attack. The demonstrated improvement in wine quality might be difficult to explain and might make for easy ridicule. It also makes for some great wine.

Organic farming is simply a practice based in what not to use. Biodyamics is for me, at best, an approximation of an alternative vineyard practice. Vines need to be nurtured, loved and brought to maturation and a successful crop. The techniques for doing so no doubt include a good mix of science and a big helping of ancient hocus pocus. Biodynamics is one interpretation, one approximation, but not the full answer to so many unknowable problems. The earth, sun and climate remain beyond our control or every vintage would be the vintage of the century.

Debunking biodynamics makes for good sport, lots of chuckles and rational righteousness. Personally, I find Rudolph Steiner to be a repulsive figure and am particulary repulsed by the whole system of Steiner education. But, no matter how silly shit-stuffed horns sound to enlighted wine drinkers, biodynamic farming has been an important corrective to industrial farming.

Where to go from here is the more difficult question, probably not one solved in the jeebus arena.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
Not so much "proof that BD had any concrete (e)ffect on grape/wine quality" but "proof that BD had any concrete (e)ffect on grape/wine quality" over & above what organic, by itself, already achieves.
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I beg to quibble.

The company I keep here is what requires paragraphs of explanation.
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Gooble gobble, we accept you.
 
Well, homeopathic medicine doesn't actually hurt people so long as they use it in addition to as opposed to instead of more effective treatments.
 
originally posted by Jay Miller:
Well, homeopathic medicine doesn't actually hurt people so long as they use it in addition to as opposed to instead of more effective treatments.
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Ah! So we should spray chemicals and bury horns at midnight. I understand now.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by Jay Miller:
Well, homeopathic medicine doesn't actually hurt people so long as they use it in addition to as opposed to instead of more effective treatments.
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Ah! So we should spray chemicals and bury horns at midnight. I understand now.
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You are deliberately misunderstanding him. Jay means that biodynamic wine doesn't actually hurt people so long as they drink it in addition to as opposed to instead of those wines made from grapes that use more effective treatments.
 
I think Ian believes that Jay believes that wine is not medicine. I don't know what his empirical basis is for that. Maybe it's just something like a religion?
 
originally posted by Joe Dressner:
Where to go from here is the more difficult question, probably not one solved in the jeebus arena.
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Didier Baroulliet has already solved it and I don't believe he would qualify under Demeter.
 
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