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Irish Spring soap used to deter deer in Silver Thread Vineyard By Tom Mansell, Science Editor This series has provoked important conversations about biodynamics, organic growing, and sustainability. Organic grapegrowing should definitely be a part of this discussion, so just as I interviewed Alice Wise regarding organic viticulture in Long Island, the following is a profile of Richard Figiel and Silver Thread Vineyard in the Finger Lakes. If you weren't looking for it specifically, you might not even know it was there. A small sign on Route 414, the Seneca Lake Wine Trail East, indicates that there is a Silver Thread Vineyard, but…

By Tom Mansell We now come to some of the most famous and well-known preparations in biodynamics, the field sprays. Cow manure or silica fermented in the ground in cow horns is practically the very symbol of biodynamics. These preparations are highly representative of the movement, but what, if anything, do they do? Field spray preparations Preparation Main Component Fermented in… Proposed function (Steiner) Proposed function (JPI) 500 Cow manure Horn of a cow "We preserve in the horn the forces it was accustomed to exert within the cow itself, namely the property of raying back whatever is life-giving and…

Yarrow flowers matured in a stag's bladder — Preparation 502 By Tom Mansell All images courtesy of The Millton Vineyard, Poverty Bay, NZ. "For there is a hidden alchemy in the organic process." - Rudolf Steiner, Agriculture At the heart of biodynamic farming are the famous preparations. In this post and the next post, we'll look at the contents of the preparations and their proposed effects and mechanisms or lack thereof. This week's post will focus on the preparations added to biodynamic compost. Compost Preparations Preparation Main Component Fermented in… Proposed function (Steiner) Proposed function (Josephine Porter Institute website) 502…

An earthworm heads back into the soil (source: schizoform on Flickr) I think we can all agree that sustainability in viticulture is important. I mentioned in my first post that our discussion about the science of biodynamics cannot leave out organic viticulture. I asked Alice Wise, viticulturist at the Long Island Horticultural Research and Extension Center (LIHREC) about some of the nuts and bolts of organic viticulture in Long Island.  NYCR: What are the primary challenges of organic viticulture in regions like Long Island? AW: The goal is economically viable yields of high quality fruit – no matter what the…

The phases of a lunar eclipse, by tizianoj at Flickr A key tenet of biodynamics is the influence of celestial bodies (e.g., the sun, moon, and planets) on agriculture.  While no one will deny the influence of the sun, it's not clear exactly what the moon might be doing to affect grapegrowing and winemaking. Take the case of Aleš Kristančič of Movia in Slovenia. Thanks to glowing reviews and a high-profile section of Sergio Esposito's book Passon On the Vine, Movia has gained cult status for wine consumers. Kristančič is a very popular speaker around the world and is consulted…

Back when I was first getting into wine, I was shopping at Red Feet Wine Market, an Ithaca boutique wine shop. I noticed that some of their shelftalkers had little stickers (seen above) with the letters "O", "S"or "B".  Having lived in Ithaca for a bit, I soon gathered that "S" stood for "sustainable" and "O" stood for organic.  I had no idea what "B" stood for. "Biodynamic," owner Dewi Rainey informed me. "It's like organic plus."  Intriguing. She went on to explain that in addition to being 100% organic, grapes are farmed according to an astrological calendar and how…

by Tom Mansell, Science Editor What do humans like to smell?  One would think that smell preference would vary from person to person, given cultural and genetic differences. Some smells, though, seem to smell good to pretty much everyone, cross-culturally. In a paper released recently in PLOS Computational Biology, researchers working in Israel reported experiments with an "eNose," a chemical detection device that approximates the ability of the human nose to sense odor molecules.  Human subjects were given aroma samples and asked to rate their "pleasantness".  The machine was then trained on this data, enabling it to detect the chemical…

By Tom Mansell, Science Editor About a year ago, I started my own blog. About six months ago, I became the science editor for this publication. Several years ago, I was a scientist (I still am), but I knew next to nothing about wine culture. Luckily, I read a lot of magazines and websites so that I could learn all about things that didn't quite make sense to me from a scientific point of view. Wine needs to breathe. People say wine is a living thing, right? So living things have to breathe! Getting oxygen into wine actually softens the…

Just-harvested Gewurztraminer at Keuka Springs Vineyard on Keuka Lake By Tom Mansell, Science Editor Photo courtesy of Keuka Spring Vineyards I recently reviewed Sheldrake Point's 2008 Gewürztraminer for my own site, and as I looked over the technical notes, I noticed that winemaker Dave Breeden added acid to the wine. I was curious about that, given the fact that many wines inthe Finger Lakes are supported by their natural acidity. The concept of adding acid in a cool-climate region like this was a bit strange to me. And, the alcohol content on this wine was listed at 13.6%, pretty high…

By Tom Mansell, Science Editor In my last article on ice wine, I talked about how volatile acidity is an important aroma characteristic in ice wine and how it can contribute to peach and pineapple aromas. To conclude our discussion, let's talk about some other famous ice wine descriptors, including honey. For our purposes, it's best to think of ice wine grapes as late harvest (well, really late harvest).  Grapes are left to hang until December, January, and even February until they are frozen on the vine.  During this time, all kinds of physical, chemical, and biological changes are happening…