{"id":15087,"date":"2014-10-26T08:00:45","date_gmt":"2014-10-26T12:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/?p=15087"},"modified":"2014-10-28T12:52:08","modified_gmt":"2014-10-28T16:52:08","slug":"super-natural-wines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/super-natural-wines\/","title":{"rendered":"Super Natural Wines"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m sure there are some energies working, and we try to use them in the right ways,\u201d says Steffen Christmann, a winemaker in Germany\u2019s Pfalz region. \u201cBut right now we can only try to understand them – and I hope I\u2019ll be alive when we finally do.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s talking biodynamics, a system of farming based on the teachings of Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian philosopher who presented his ideas in the 1920s. \u201cBiodynamic\u201d is a word that\u2019s been cropping up frequently in the wine world, gaining traction with the trend in natural wine bars like The Ten Bells and Racines in New York City and Terroir in San Francisco.<\/p>\n

Biodynamic wine used to be considered a fringe approach, but that\u2019s no longer the case – as witnessed by Christmann, the seventh generation to run his family\u2019s winery and head of Germany\u2019s VDP, a consortium of the country\u2019s long-running top winemakers.<\/p>\n

Over the last couple of decades, interest has blossomed in the philosophy, which aims to harness natural forces – whether from plants, animals, insects, or even gravitational pull – to create a healthy environment for crops and animals. It\u2019s similar to organic farming in that it eschews man-made chemicals (herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, and fertilizers), but it goes a few steps further, requiring practitioners to create farming environments that are self-balancing through robust biodiversity. Respect for natural cycles of life, the thinking goes, delivers the most out of both plants and animals.<\/p>\n

From a farming perspective, there are pragmatic reasons to turn to biodynamics. Grape growers who convert from conventional farming (the term used to refer to post-World War II, petrochemical-reliant cultivation) to biodynamics regularly report that, after the detox stage, vines are better at weathering drought, wet spells, and other climatic challenges. Vines seem more robust, flexible, and self-regulating – powerful advantages in a world with increasingly scarcer water supplies and drastically variable weather patterns.<\/p>\n

In fact, some of the best wines in the world are made by wineries practicing biodynamics (Roman\u00e9e-Conti, for instance, or Zind-Humbrecht, two legendary French producers). If you believe that the highest calling of wine is to channel the flavor of place\u2014terroir\u2014then it would make sense to look to vineyards farmed in tune with the local environment, rather than ones maintained with chemicals. Consider the difference between factory-raised chicken and free-range birds: Philosophical and ethical questions aside, one simply tastes differently than the other.<\/p>\n

Challenges with Cheese<\/h3>\n

Because cheese, like wine, has an exceptional ability to channel terroir, I went looking for biodynamic cheese\u2026 only to find that there aren\u2019t many certified-biodynamic dairies in the US beyond Hawthorne Valley Farm in Upstate New York and Paradise Springs Farm in Teton Valley, Idaho. Elizabeth Candelario, the co-director of Demeter USA, the certifying agency for biodynamics, explains that while the US claims more than 80 certified-biodynamic wineries, barriers for animal products pose more of a challenge, since requirements are so contrary to the status quo.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe intention [of the Demeter standard] is to allow the animal to fully express its unique characteristics,\u201d Candelario says. \u201cPigs keep their tails, chickens their beaks, and cows their horns. Access to free range is required. They must have a clean, dry place to sleep at night. A majority of their food must come from the farm itself, and the rest must be NOP [National Organic Program]-certified.\u201d<\/p>\n

That said, with retailers like Whole Foods Market and companies such as The Republic of Tea and Lundberg Family Farms beginning to market biodynamic foods, Candelario is hopeful that our future will hold more biodynamic cheese. It already does in Europe, she points out, where food farmers were the first adapters, and vintners followed (unlike in the US, where wine is leading the way). Overseas, it\u2019s not unusual to find cheeses from biodynamic farms in farmers\u2019 markets and even grocery stores.<\/p>\n

Of course, biodynamics is not the only way to achieve environmentally responsible, terroir-rich wine and food. Rob Lawler, who runs The Truffle Cheese Shop in Denver, Colo., points out that labels don\u2019t guarantee good taste; many would-be certified producers opt out of the process due to cost. \u201cThe farmers that only have a handful of dairy animals won\u2019t want to pay [certification fees] if they are a huge portion of their profits,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Those concerned about where foods come from shouldn\u2019t seek certification stickers, but instead detailed information about individual farmers, Lawler suggests. For instance, if a customer asks for a cheese from a farm Lawler admires, he might recommend Avalanche Cheese Company, even though it has no official certification.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s basically goat heaven,\u201d Lawler says. \u201cThey pasture-feed all of their goats, but feed them some grain when milking to encourage them into the milking stalls.\u201d The grain isn\u2019t certified organic, but that\u2019s not a deal breaker for Lawler. \u201cI\u2019d rather support the cheesemaker who\u2019s buying alfalfa from the guy next door [instead of buying] it from a 20,000-acre organic alfalfa farm in California and [trucking] it across the country,\u201d he says. Which, if you\u2019re looking for the taste of place, makes a lot of sense.<\/p>\n

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Dedication to chemical-free, terroir-forward farming and flavors infuses the biodynamic wine trend<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15089,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[543],"tags":[149],"coauthors":[141],"class_list":["post-15087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cheese-pairings","tag-wine"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSuper Natural Wines - culture: the word on cheese<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Dedication to chemical-free, terroir-forward farming and flavors infuses the biodynamic wine trend\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/super-natural-wines\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Super Natural Wines\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dedication to chemical-free, terroir-forward farming and flavors infuses the biodynamic wine trend\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/super-natural-wines\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"culture: the word on cheese\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-10-26T12:00:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-10-28T16:52:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/AUT14-Wine_Biodynamic_750x368.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"750\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"368\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tara Q. 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