Biodynamics Podcast

Feb 19

We made a Biodynamics podcast for everyone who has ever been curious about what Biodynamic® agriculture, viticulture, and winemaking means and how it applies to the wines you love. Here’s the full transcript of our third Frey Vines Biodynamics Podcast episode, and you can hear/see the episode on Spotify or your favorite streaming platforms. You can also watch all the Frey Vines Podcast episodes on our YouTube channel.

Molly Frey: Frey Vineyards is the first certified Biodynamic® Winery in the USA! We wanted to share more about what it means to be certified Biodynamic® and how that contributes to some truly excellent wine! The field of Biodynamics explores a rich world of connection to the earth, to the cycles of life, and to a true terroir in the world of wine. Join us for this episode of the Frey Vines podcast as we dive into all things Biodynamic®!

Intro Music “Come and Play” by The Freys Band

Derek Dahlen: My name is Derek Dahlen. I'm the Vineyard Manager at Frey Vineyards, and I have a master's degree in Biodynamic agriculture that I received from the New College of California in 2002. Biodynamic agriculture, in a lot of parts of the world, is considered the gold standard of organic farming -above and beyond the bare minimum of not using chemical or synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.

Molly: Our Biodynamic wines are crafted in harmony with the rhythms of nature and fermented on native yeasts in vineyards that we maintain biodynamically. As four generations of organic farmers and winemakers, we find that our care and respect for the earth are reflected in our wines’ expression of purity. We believe that Biodynamic viticulture helps us bring you the best quality wine possible.

Eliza Frey: Frey Vineyards, we've gotten our vineyard certified biodynamic since 1996. Biodynamic agriculture has a lot of different components. The main components for certification are having to do with the use of very specific concentrated composts that are made and applied to the vineyard in different ways. And you know, biodynamics is a lot to unpack because there are philosophical parts of it. There are aspects of it that go into planetary and lunar rhythms. And there's also kind of like this component of human development as humans. It's the idea that our engagement with a farm and an agricultural process can, that we can use our time working with plants and observing nature to also develop deeper capacities as humans.

Derek: Frey Vineyards was the first Demeter certified biodynamic winery in the United States in 1996 and now there are dozens of organic wineries and it's, it's, it's great to see growth in the sector, more interest from consumers, more interest from farmers to kind of take it up a notch and go to the next level of farming.

Another thing that's really interesting about biodynamics is that we look at the both the most microcosm and the larger macrocosm of the universe. So, we're paying a lot of attention to what's going on in the soil, all the unseen forces, the nature spirits that we know are there. We can't see with our bare eyes, but the fungal bacterial microorganisms that are in the soil, but that are also in the air all around us all the time.

Biodynamic Preparations

Katrina Frey: So starting in the nineties, as I said, we transitioned our vineyards to Biodynamics. Because we were always organic, we didn't have to wait for the soil to recover from applications of Roundup and different herbicides and pesticides. But what we did have to do was start using the Biodynamic preparations.

Derek: Yeah, so with the biodynamic preparations that Rudolf Steiner prescribed with his agriculture lectures in 1924, there are two specific field sprays that we pay a lot of attention to: horn manure and horn silica. Horn manure is a very special compost formulation where fresh cow manure from a pastured cow, preferably a lactating cow, is stuffed into a cow horn, (a horn from a cow, not a bull) that has lactated itself also. And these horns are then buried in fertile garden soil in the fall and spend six months in the earth until springtime where they're dug up.

And there's a great transformation of this, what used to be fresh, smelly cow manure into this beautiful, rich, humic, really fine compost that is indistinguishable really from the original manure. So we use that mixed with water. So we enliven water with the substance that comes out of the horn (the horn manure) and stir it in a rhythmic fashion for an hour, clockwise until you reach a vortex, and then counterclockwise, likewise, until reaching a vortex.

The idea being that you're creating this beautiful order with the vortex and then breaking up that order, making chaos, by turning the, stirring the other direction, kind of like, uh, you know, waves crashing on the beach and then the slow calm of the water retreating and then the crash again on the beach. So it's a, it's a way to quickly enliven water with the forces that are in the horn manure. The horn silica is finely ground quartz crystals, mix a little bit of water to make a paste that are also packed into a cow horn and buried in the garden soil in the springtime and spend six months over the summer until they're dug up in the fall.

“The idea being that we’re working with life forces ”

— Derek Dahlen on Biodynamics

We’re using small amounts to affect more of a positive change. The idea being that we're working with life forces as opposed to the death forces of chemicals with the preparations that we're applying into the field. So those are the 2 field sprays, horn manure and horn silica. Then there's a set of compost preparations that are all very specific recipes of medicinal herbs that are composted in very specific manners and used as inoculants in the compost piles.

Molly: The root of a lot of the Biodynamic process is making really great compost to help support the health of the soil. To share more about Luke Frey, a world-renowned Biodynamic farmer who has won awards for the high quality of his Biodynamic preparations is Katrina Frey.

Katrina: I have to give a lot of credit to my brother-in-law, Luke Frey, for leading us into Biodynamics. As a young man, Luke started attending the conferences for the Biodynamic Association of Northern California, which is known as BDANC, and he became really fascinated with all of the promise of biodynamic agriculture. And, he started making the compost and crop preparations that are fundamental to biodynamics. And maybe most importantly, he started to figure out how to apply these over acres. So he created spray rigs that he could pull behind a four-wheeler and do the Biodynamic preparation applications.

Biodynamic Certification

Molly: With Derek Dahlen ready to practice his Masters Degree in Biodynamics and Luke Frey making great Biodynamic preparations, Frey Vineyards was poised to thrive as the first Biodynamic winery in the country. And, in the 1990s, Katrina Frey helped create the category of Biodynamic wine by helping establish the Biodynamic certification behind the scenes.

Katrina: So, to achieve biodynamic certification is a long process. Most people need some years to achieve it because it's layered and very idealistic and ambitious. So we started probably in 1993 to seriously try to achieve that. And, we became certified in 1996. And then, we had to figure out how to get the federal agency, the TTB, to allow us to use the word Biodynamic on a wine label.

Molly: The TTB is the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, which governs the certifications, laws, and regulation of the wine industry. Part of the process of being the first to do anything, is the reality that one has to pave the way for others to come. By championing the highest quality viticulture, Frey pioneered the category of Organic and then that of Biodynamic wine in the US. Katrina actively helped shape the Biodynamic standard for the federal level, and also worldwide!

Katrina: And by now I had joined the board of the USDA Demeter board, which governs Biodynamics in the United States. And through them, I was introduced to an attorney in Washington, DC, who specialized in helping Biodynamic products enter the marketplace. So we hired Eileen Sedell for a year and a half. And finally, we managed to get a label approved through the federal agency, the TTB.

Since Frey got their Demeter certification, quite a few other wineries have achieved it, which is really exciting. But there's a robust number of wineries in Oregon that are certified Biodynamic also in California. And there's a few in Washington state as well. So, it's definitely a strong category, and it's recognized by a lot of wine experts as being an important attribute because really the most important thing about making good wine is to start with excellent quality fruit, and that's what biodynamics is focused on, really excellent, balanced flavors in grapes.

The other projects that I worked on while I was on the board of Demeter. I was on the board for about 10 years. For seven years, I was the president of the board. But one of the other really important projects was that the U. S. Demeter Association led the Worldwide Demeter Association to make a wine standard. And Biodynamics is a little different from how the organic Certification is. In biodynamics, you have different standards for olive oil, wine, juices, peanut butter, jams, etc. So there's a whole array of standards for these processed foods. And the United States led the European Community and the South American community and the African community, all of the wine producing regions of the world to agree upon a standard.

Biodiversity and Biodynamics

Katrina: And, one of the aspects that the United States really pushed, which entered the standard as a really new idea was to set aside 10 percent of the farm for biodiversity. So what that meant is if you were a farmer in Iowa, you would set aside part of your land for natural prairie to come back. If you were a grape grower in Napa County with extremely valuable land, you would tear out a couple of rows of your vines and plant a hedgerow of plants that would attract beneficial insects. For Frey, that was never a challenge because we're so fortunate to own a whole mountainside of wild land that abuts our vineyards. So for us, we farm about 20 percent of our land and set aside about 80 percent of it for biodiversity.

Derek: Biodynamic agriculture incorporates biodiversity on the farm, requires a minimum of 10 percent wild habitat on the farm, as well as encouraging livestock integration onto the farm. More of like a polycultural system as opposed to a monoculture as much as feasible. And then with biodynamic farming, we also attempt the best we can to maintain and create our fertility on farm as opposed to importing fertility from from off-farm, as well as dealing with pest and disease management with our on-farm resources as much as possible, as opposed to importing resources from from outside.

With biodynamic farming, there's also the concept of using a special set of compost preparations and field spray preparations that were prescribed by Rudolf Steiner 100 years ago. They're used essentially like herbal medicine for the farm and an inoculant of highly concentrated beneficial microorganisms for the soil.

Katrina: For me, the wild farm dance that farmers can play as responsible stewards of the land is a really, really beautiful and important part of farming for the future.

Molly: Protecting our natural habitat encourages a healthy balance in our vineyard. Our vineyards are surrounded by over 1,000 acres of wildland that hold a mix of oak and conifer forests and are home to a wide variety of animals, including bear, mountain lions, birds, and beneficial insects.

Additionally, our new winery landscaping features native plants such as oak trees, manzanita, and milkweed that provide forage and habitat for pollinators and birds. The new site features a berm that will be part of a nature trail where visitors can enjoy the beauty of our vineyard nestled in the surrounding oak woodland and learn about key plant communities and the wildlife they support.

It is important to note however, that the Biodynamic wine-making standard currently allows for the use of sulfites. Frey Vineyards is ever committed to producing the best no-sulfites-added wine possible. For that reason, all of our Biodynamic wines are also certified organic, so that you can drink confidently knowing that no sulfites were used to produce the Frey wines that you love.

To conclude our Frey Vines podcast on Biodynamics, here’s a quote from Katrina Frey’s organic farming teacher, Alan Chadwick.

“We are the living links in a life force that moves and plays around and through us, binding the deepest soils with the farthest stars.”

— Alan Chadwick

Molly: For questions or comments about the content shared here, Frey Vineyards or Frey wines, you can email info at freywine.com or call 1 800 760 3739. Our retail staff is happy to help you Monday through Friday, 9am to 5pm Pacific Standard Time. Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Frey Vines Podcast, telling the story of organic grapes. We hope you'll turn in for our next episodes when we'll pluck more storied fruits off the Frey Vines.

Biodynamics

We hope that this Biodynamics podcast provided an introduction to the wide world of Biodynamics. For more information about the study and practice of Biodynamics, you can visit Demeter USA and the Biodynamic Federation.