Biodynamic agriculture turns 100 this year. It was in 1924 that Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy, gave his famous lectures to a group of anthroposophical farmers who worried that the new artificial fertilisers would deplete their soil. Anthroposophy is a controversial and difficult-to-understand “spiritual” philosophy and biodynamic agriculture is not easy to understand either. And it has its detractors.
However, a number of wine producers, among them some famous ones, have adopted Steiner’s methods. (But it is not at all the case that “almost all high quality producer works more-or-less biodynamically although they are not certified”, as is sometimes said.)
Biodynamic viticulture is more popular than one would think, considering the strange preparations used in the vineyards. Demeter, headquartered in Germany, is the dominant biodynamic certification body, certifying around 1500 wine producers worldwide.
Read: Read more on biodynamic wines in BKWine’s book Organic, Biodynamic and Natural winemaking.
