Of Moons, Stars & Vines

Italy’s biodynamic movement is creating notable wines using self-sustaining techniques and an astrological twist.

- Danielle Pergament From The New York Times

IT WAS A HOT, late summer evening in Tuscan wine country—and, unexpectedly, I was getting a lesson in astrology. Inside a grid of cool, lush green vines, amid hills and valleys rippling towards the horizon, a cherubic woman in a wide straw hat named Helena Variara was pointing towards the sky.

“You have days of fire, air and days of earth—the 12 constellations are our helpers,” she said matter-of-factly. “Our work is to enter the rhythm of the planets.”

Technically speaking, Variara’s work is also to make wine. She and her partner, Dante Lomazzi, own a tiny winery called Colombaia, outside Siena. “We work the soil on earth days,” she said. “We work the leaves on water days. The sugar in the grapes grows when the moon grows. So we only harvest after a full moon.”

Variara’s practices may seem unorthodox, but her method, known as biodynamic winemaking, is becoming more and more prominent among a small cohort of Italian winemakers. It follows an ethos created by Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner in the early 1920s, and the tenets as practised by growers today are fairly simple: There can be no synthetic chemicals or mechanical irrigation. The farm must also grow a variety of fruits and vegetables, and there have to be animals to keep this miniature ecosystem in check.

And the farmer must adhere to a specific celestial calendar. Hence my astrology lesson.

Sebastian Nasello, the winemaker at Podere Le Ripi in Montalcino, explained it this way: “Organic farming does no harm to the earth. Biodynamic farming aims to make the earth healthier.”

Most biodynamic vineyards produce about 10,000 to 20,000 bottles annually. As a point of comparison, Goliath vineyards such as Antinori and Frescobaldi produce millions of bottles a year.