Biodynamic is a great word. It sounds terribly modern – bio anything means good right? While dynamic is one of those buzzwords we throw into a job application to make us sound less like a sloth. The term, however, is not modern, it is a century old, and the style of farming it refers to is something that, even when it was dreamed up in the 1920s, was better suited to an earlier time. With its focus on strange rituals, observation of lunar cycles, and general rejection of modernity (and science), biodynamics is more of a mediaeval ideology, when peasants scrabbled in the fields and petitioned an empty sky using arcane rituals before living to the ripe old age of 32. The wikipedia page for biodynamic agriculture does a far colder interpretation of the discipline than I could manage, so I will let that explain how it (allegedly) works:
Biodynamic agriculture is a form of alternative agriculture based on pseudo-scientific and esoteric concepts initially developed in 1924 by Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925)..Biodynamic agriculture uses various herbal and mineral additives for compost additives and field sprays; these are prepared using methods that are more akin to sympathetic magic than agronomy, such as burying ground quartz stuffed into the horn of a cow, which are said to harvest “cosmic forces in the soil”. No difference in beneficial outcomes has been scientifically established between certified biodynamic agricultural techniques and similar organic and integrated farming practices. Biodynamic agriculture is a pseudoscience as it lacks scientific evidence for its efficacy because of its reliance upon esoteric knowledge and mystical beliefs.
Built on a series of lectures by occultist philosopher Rudolf Steiner, a man who claimed to have seen ghosts and have a complete understanding of time aged 15, biodynamic agriculture feels like the end point of a downward spiral that begins with normal organic farming and somehow gets radicalised into an anti-science screed. It is a scientology of the soil, but just as there are very famous people who seem to have made that particular system of living work very well for them, there are farmers who have used biodynamics to great acclaim. They just happen to be farming grapes.
Domaine Leroy in Burgundy, Chateau de la Roche-aux-Moines in the Loire, Maison Chapoutier in the Rhone Valley, and Domaine Zind Humbrecht in Alsace, all practise biodynamic agriculture, and are the names most often trotted out when people try to tell you biodynamics is great, actually, and it works, actually. But there are many other wine producers who also use it, and it is generally held that whatever is in the system, it does actually work. The question is why.
Spoiler – it probably isn’t the lunar phases stuff. Biodynamics, as an extension of organic farming, means a lot of attention paid to the process of farming. The preparations, as they are known, require quite a bit of work – the most famous one is the cow horn packed with manure, but it isn’t even as simple as stuffing some shit into a horn:
For the production of horn manure, you need fresh and well-formed cow dung, without straw from lactating cows. In case you don‘t have enough dung from lactating cows you can also use dung from heifers. The best manure comes from cows grazing outdoors on pastures or from cows fed with a clover grass mixture supplemented with hay and straw. Runny cow dung should not be used. Straw or other plant parts must be removed from the cow dung. Only undamaged and well-formed cow horns should be used. The horns should come from one’s own cows as far as possible. Cows should have calved at least once. The cow horn contains a bony core. To remove it, the horns can be placed in a safe spot in the sun or put in a compost heap for a short time. The horn will come off readily from the core after five to seven days. Horns of cows that have calved can be easily recognized by their calving rings. These rings are missing in horns from bulls. In the northern hemisphere, cow horns are filled with dung from the end of September to the end of October; in the southern hemisphere in March-April, sometimes in May. Manure is filled into the horns either by hand or with
the help of a spoon or spatula. Care must be taken to ensure that the horns are filled right into the horn tip. To avoid cavities, the horns can be tapped with the tip of the horn on a solid surface or a stone. Horns that are either over filled or under filled will cause poor transformation of the manure. For larger amounts of horn manure, a sausage filler can be used. The dung in the cylinder is pressed into the cow horn.
All of the above is before you come to the explanation of digging the pit to bury the horns o’ plenty in. Contrast all this to simply decanting a slurry pit into a spreader and hosing the field, or lashing a bit of fertiliser at the crop. Sure, it all takes craft and work, but biodynamics takes a lot of work. Perhaps this is why it persists despite being more than a little out there.
Speaking of out there, Mark Reynier. He’s the Lord Summerisle of all this – Bruichladdich, Waterford, the terroir, the organic, the biodynamic, the madness, the soil, the soil, the soil. Sumer is icumen in, lhude sing cuccu!
Waterford Distillery is unique in the Irish whiskey category because Reynier is unique in his approach to whisky – the focus on grain, the extraordinary branding, the attention to detail in the aesthetics and the unique messaging. I have my quibbles about it all, but nobody can deny that it is an incredible brand. I’m just not sure about all the wine stuff – does whisky need this? Do we need cuvees, terroir, biodynamics? Does it elevate whisky to use these terms and ideas in its production? Is whisky somehow inferior to wine? Terroir in whisky was tenuous enough, despite what Waterford’s research says, so is the terroir of biodynamic barley really something we should be excited about?
Above all it is an experiment in both flavour and marketing, as was terroir. I think terroir had its chance to root itself in whisky distilling, and I think that moment might have passed. Reynier’s rum distillery in Grenada has allegedly been sold, and it appears that job number one for the new owners was to shut the cane-growing operation which was supplying the distillery. Presumably, continuing the costly terroir project was not high on their agenda.
It drives home the point of just how expensive all these experiments are – from the single farm distillations, to the resurrection of old barley strains like Goldthorpe, to the organic, the biodynamic. I quibble about the price of almost every whiskey and while Waterford is no different, I can see where the money went. It’s a project unlike any other.
I don’t have to quibble about the price of their latest biodynamic, the Cuvee Luna, because they sent me a bottle to review, but it is normally €100. I’ll let them explain it in their usual slightly vaudeville way:
Eccentric to some, regenerative to others, Biodynamic agriculture goes beyond the ordinary ecological mindset. Drawing upon ancient lore of lunar cycles & exotic preparations, it seeks to charge soils with vitality & barley with vibrancy.
Practised by the most visionary & curious, we too are intrigued about the most natural flavours we can capture in spirit. Now, for the first time, we bring distinct Biodynamic harvests from original Biodynamic pioneers Trevor Harris, Alan Mooney and John McDonnell together in our most profound, esoteric and evocative Cuvée Concept yet.
Inspired by the greatest Bordeaux châteaux and Champagne houses, Cuvée Concepts are our most complex and creative single malts. Our oldest vintages of Biodynamic barley – 2018 and 2019 – separately distilled and matured then layered by Head Distiller Ned like a single malt millefeuille. Each vintage brings its own unique characters; a harmony greater than the sum of its considerable parts.
Maturation was for five years, one month and 19 days, this cuvee was created on March 21, 2024, bottled July 2024 at 50% ABV and contains three single farm origins. Cask composition is 37% US first fill, 17% US virgin, 25% Vin Doux Naturel, and 21% Premium French. Non-chill filtered and natural colour, the official notes are:
NOSE: Green apple, hay, malted biscuits, white pepper, peaches, barnyard, cherry tomatoes, dry soil, light herbal tea, breadcrust, birch.
TASTE: Pepper spice, dry, breakfast cereals, chewable, lemon curd, pesto, green peppers, porridge with cream, malted biscuits, herbal tea, grapefruit.
FINISH: Creamy, gentle spices with dryness that turns herbal and lingers into an Irish goodbye.
Aside from the questionable impacts (or lack thereof) of biodynamics, is the fact the barley was grown according to a form of agriculture based in mysticism something we should celebrate? There are elements of biodynamic farming that make a kind of down-home common sense – treating the farm as a unique ecosystem, balancing all its needs using only livestock and produce from within – but biodynamics is still a pseudoscience, and as society becomes more advanced, it is becoming more and more of a pseudoscience. When it was conceived a century ago, it was a rejection of modern advances – it held that fertilisers and pesticides were bad, and that mysticism was a better route to good soil health. It feels like a system built around the ‘retvrn to tradition’ mindset, where modern society is weak and corrupt, and the olden times were stronger, cleaner, more pure. Perhaps there is an element of this kind of weird proto fascist nostalgia in a lot of whisky marketing – fawning over the days of yore makes up a good chunk of many brand narratives, as though life in the olden times wasn’t nasty, brutish, and short, as if society wasn’t incredibly cruel, and unfair, and riddled with inequality. Biodynamics is an ideology as much as an agricultural practice, and is more a question of faith than anything – if you think it matters that the barley for this whisky was grown in this slightly odd way, then this is for you. But even if you don’t, it’s still a nice dram.
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