Biodynamic Wines

[Nevan]

Dear Jancis:

It seems that the concept of biodyanimc farming (in the absolutist sense, not just heightened organic farming) is gathering momentum as a viticultural practice, both in Europe and America. I'm curious to know what your tasting experience has been with "biodynamie" wines: do you think the practice produces consistently better fruit? Are the wines noticeably better . . . or at least different? Do you feel this a fad of the times or a wave of the future?

Thanks for any insight you can offer . . . and thank you for visiting us!

-Nevan

[Jancis Robinson]

I haven't done enough blind comparative tasting between same or similar lots of wine from adjacent bio and non-bio plots to answer this one definitively. Certainly when I have (eg Leflaive) the bio wines seem 'wilder' and more intense - and none could be more intense (sometimes too much so) than Leroy's bugundies. On the other hand the most famous bio wines of the lot, Joly's Savennieres, have not consistently thrilled me. Obviously there are too many variables in the equation.

Incidentally, when I visited Romanee Conti last Nov, Aubert de Villaine told me he had tried bio viticulture and was minded to return to simple organic as he couldn't really see enough benefits from bio.