{"id":1818,"date":"2021-04-29T15:15:48","date_gmt":"2021-04-29T15:15:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1818"},"modified":"2021-04-29T15:15:48","modified_gmt":"2021-04-29T15:15:48","slug":"organic-biodynamic-natural-whats-going-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1818","title":{"rendered":"Organic? Biodynamic? Natural?  What\u2019s Going On?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As you\u2019re enjoying the rustic air of Wine Country, you might want to know how well the grapes were raised and harvested and then what was done to the juice in the industrial processes of crushing, fermenting, aging and bottling.\u00a0 Vignerons and wine makers are as concerned about sanitary and healthful practices as anyone \u2013 in fact, more so than many of us \u2013 and they have responded in a number of ways.\u00a0 But many of the terms in use in the world of wine today can be very confusing.<\/p>\n<p>Making wine used to be rather simple, at least in concept:\u00a0 Plant vines; Nurture grapes; Harvest and process grapes; Repeat.\u00a0 Now there are considerations that are intended to make the wine better that are either advanced or trendy, depending on your perspective.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Organic wines<\/strong> \u2013 We are all used to seeing organic fruits and vegetables in the supermarket. Grapes are fruit so there\u2019s no reason why some of them might be raised organically.\u00a0 In practice, what does that mean?\u00a0 In a sense, it\u2019s a return to the simple principles of olden times.\u00a0 Specifically, organic grapes are raised without a lot of chemicals such as fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides and herbicides. \u00a0Now, we\u2019re not fond of drinking a glass of bug-killer, but then we\u2019re not too happy about knowing that little critters have been gnawing on the same grapes that went into out glasses.\u00a0 At least in theory, crops should be certified as being organic but we\u2019re not sure that all organic winemakers go through this step.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/biodynamic.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1819 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/biodynamic-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"662\" height=\"441\" srcset=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/biodynamic-300x200.jpg 300w, http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/biodynamic-768x513.jpg 768w, http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/biodynamic-1024x684.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/biodynamic.jpg 1950w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 662px) 100vw, 662px\" \/><\/a><em>Some biodynamic wine practices. Photo courtesy of Bibendum Wine.<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Biodynamic wines<\/strong> \u2013 Makers of these wines follow the same organic practices but then go quite a bit further. Evidently an Austrian fellow in the beginning of the previous century espoused some theories about agriculture that proponents call <em>advanced<\/em> and detractors think of as just plain whacky. Among these are following astrological observations and burying cow\u2019s horns filled with manure in the vineyards.\u00a0 We\u2019d be thoroughly in the detractor category except that some of the biodynamic wines we\u2019ve tried have been pretty good, so maybe there\u2019s something there.\u00a0 (Just to confuse matters, French winemakers who raise grapes organically, but not biodynamically refer to their wines as \u201cbio\u201d.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/vin_nature.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1820 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/vin_nature-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/vin_nature-300x199.jpg 300w, http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/vin_nature.jpg 748w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><em>The logo for French \u201cnatural\u201d wines.\u00a0 Courtesy of decanter.com.<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Natural wines<\/strong> \u2013 These wines place less emphasis on how the grapes are raised but rather focus on what happens to the juice once it is crushed out of those grapes. The winemakers don\u2019t add yeast to force fermentation but rely on the natural yeasts that settle on the grapes in the vineyards.\u00a0 Some makers of natural wines add a little bit of sulfites to preserve the wines, but much less than the producers of most commercial wines.\u00a0 Others add no sulfites at all.\u00a0 In the United States, there are no formal rules for natural wines but the French government has recently set a designation for <em>vin m\u00e9thode nature <\/em>the prescribes methods and practices.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We at <em>Power Tasting<\/em> applaud any methods being applied to make better wine.\u00a0 We have found that these practices have vastly improved winemaking in areas that used to be known for \u201crustic\u201d (i.e., low quality) products.\u00a0 But we are not fans of cultish ideas that are more about lifestyle philosophy than winemaking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As you\u2019re enjoying the rustic air of Wine Country, you might want to know how well the grapes were raised and harvested and then what was done to the juice in the industrial processes of crushing, fermenting, aging and bottling.\u00a0 Vignerons and wine makers are as concerned about sanitary and healthful practices as anyone \u2013 &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1818\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Organic? Biodynamic? Natural?  What\u2019s Going On?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1818"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1818"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1821,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1818\/revisions\/1821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}