A Hedonist in the Cellar_ Adventures in Wine - Jay McInerney [70]
Vine-munching insects are trapped on sticky paper and cremated, their ashes mixed in a solution that is sprayed in a vineyard to repel their fellows. Another preparation sometimes used, horn silica, a.k.a. quartz, is sprayed on vines between three a.m. and eight a.m. at the equinox. Steiner’s emphasis on lunar and cosmic rhythms can sound flaky to nonbelievers, but Benziger makes an intuitive case: “The moon moves the oceans, and plants are ninety-eight percent water.” Sinskey says that “Steiner refers to the silica spraying as focusing life forces. I see it as refracting light. I don’t know how it works. Using silica spray, we’ve seen sugars leap within twenty-four hours.”
Perhaps the most arcane practice of biodynamic viticulture involves the aforementioned burying of manure in cow horns—which Steiner believed are infused with the life force— during the fall equinox. They are dug up in the spring and mixed into a homeopathic spray. Personally, I’d rather drink a wine nurtured with cow horn and nettles than one raised on phosphates and insecticides. The theory, if correct, suggests that biodynamic wines should taste better, and more site specific, in the long run, in addition to being safer, a conclusion that seems to be borne out by the recent wines of growers like Leroy, Leflaive, Zind-Humbrecht, and Chapoutier. But not all biodynamic wines are excellent: Nicolas Joly, of Coulée de Serrant, seems indifferent to the winemaking, as opposed to the winegrowing, process; his recent wines have often been oxidized and downright weird.
Master of Wine Jancis Robinsion, who recently compared the biodynamic and conventional cuvées of Leflaive’s wines, says, “I do think that successful biodynamically grown wines do taste different—wilder, more intense, and dangerous— hunting dogs rather than lapdogs, if you like.”
“I’m doing it because I think it produces great wines,” says Benziger, whose Sonoma Mountain estate wines are well worth seeking out. “I don’t want people to buy it because it’s biodynamic. I’m also hoping this property will be taken over by my kids, and I want to be able to hand them over a piece of property that’s increasing in health, not dying.”
NEW ZEALAND’S SECOND ACT
Not too long ago, in a faraway place now best known as Middle Earth, a wine was born. New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc appeared suddenly, as if it had sprung fully formed from Zeus’s head, and in the past decade it has taken its place alongside Barossa Shiraz and Napa Cabernet as a kind of instant classic. It was as though the Kiwis figured out how to bottle Kiri Te Kanawa’s voice. From this distance it appears that those few of her compatriots who weren’t employed as extras on Lord of the Rings were busy planting vines. That was Act One. Act Two is still getting under way.
For those of you who missed Act One, here is a précis: in 1985 David Hohnen, owner of Cape Mentelle Vineyards in the Margaret River region of Western Australia, flew to New Zealand, convinced that the cool climate of the South Island could produce great Sauvignon Blanc. In fact, Montana, a big company based on the North Island, had already ventured south to plant Sauvignon in Marlborough in ′76, and its early bottlings were promising. Hohnen met winemaker Kevin Judd, hired him on the spot, and bought land in the Marlborough district, on the northeast corner of the island. Within a year the first vintage of Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc, made from locally purchased grapes, was creating a buzz and winning prizes in Australia and the United Kingdom.
Within a decade Cloudy Bay had spawned numerous imitators and had helped create a new style of wine. For some reason,