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Alois Lageder and his biodynamic wine
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Photo of Steiner courtesy of Wikipedia
Alois Lageder has been crafting wines in his estate in Trentino-Alto Adige, northern Italy, for most of his 59 years. In the early 1990’s, after studying the writings of Rudolf Steiner on biodynamic cultivation, he decided to take the leap into what many consider voodoo viticulture.
Steiner’s biodynamic theory “understands the vineyard (or any cultivated crop), the grapes, the soil, the natural setting and all the organisms that live within it to function as a highly complex ecosystem, and as interdependent component parts of the universe as a whole.” Steiner was, among other things, a philosopher. He sought common ground between science and spirituality on many topics but is best known for his approach to growing crops.
Much of it makes sense to us now: don’t abuse the land with chemicals, treat it as a living thing with the worms and other crawlies below as important as the crop itself above. But it’s the means to get there that cause many to roll their eyes. For instance, you need to take a cow horn and fill it with manure and then bury it for a bit. Then you swirl it clockwise and counter-clockwise into a slurry. This sounds like the mumbo-jumbo we heard as kids when listening to the old fairy tales of witches using “eye of newt and gut of goat” to make a useful brew.
This is not the place to defend that view or to attack it; rather, it’s a place to discuss the wines. But I was given a link (shown below) that will take you through some of the reasoning behind these seemingly off-the- wall methods. I won’t proselytize, but I will tell you the cow-horn stuff made a lot more sense after I read it.
The important things are that Lageder and others believe in and practice biodymanic farming and that the results are in the glass. Every wine in the stable he presented showed balance, concentration and length of flavor. The 2007 “Vogelmaier” Moscato Giallo ($23) is made in the very dry style for Muscats and would make a nice aperitif as would the 2007 “Haberle” Pinot Bianco, a mini Burgundy without the oak ($23). The 2007 Pinot Grigio “Beneficium Porer” ($25) has some oak to it but seems to have less structure than I remember from earlier vintages. Even more oaky was the 2003 Chardonnay “Lowengang” ($43). The 2005 Pinot Noir “Krafuss” ($45) will never pretend to be red Burgundy but showed black cherry and a dash of oak for interest.
The white fave of the lot was the 2008 Chardonnay-Pinot Grigio “Beta Delta” ($23). It had very assertive, almost Muscat-like odors but was dry and very tangy with almost an Alsace minerality. For the reds, the 2003 Lagrein “Lindenburg” ($30), from a grape pretty much indigenous to Alto Adige, didn’t have much going on the nose but was a dense, but lean and balanced fruit-basket on the palate. And, lastly, the 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon “Cor Romigberg” ($35) is a mini-version of Bordeaux although silkier and definitely a red that would make sense in the hot weather for that grilled steak.
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