[question] Question submitted by James Varney What’s your take on organically/biodynamically produced wine? I rarely see them in wine stores and whenever I’ve read anything about them it’s almost always been in some article about wines I can’t really afford anyway! While living in Germany I had many bio (as they’re known there) wines from Italy and Spain – believe it or not – which cost $10 – $16. What’s going on in OZ? I’ve heard a lot Oz wines contain inordinate quantities of ‘unnatural’ chemicals/additives. Any comment? [/question] [answer] There is an increasing number of organic and biodynamically produced wines available in Australia, much of which is now being retailed by a new generation of specialist stores that offer only organic and biodynamic produce in their range. As such, they are something of an offshoot to most conventional wines, and are not often stocked in the major wine specialist chains. There are some good wines made by these approaches, but there are also some shockers as well. There is as yet no correlation between wine quality and an organic/biodynamic approach, but it’s very early days in Australia. Last year there was an international biodynamic wine convention in Beechworth, Victoria, which featured an international tasting of such wines. While I was not present at the tasting, the opinion of people I trust was fairly uniform: quality was all over the place, and makers you’d expect to rate well (like Cullen) certainly did. I also get the feeling that a number of lesser-quality makers were attempting to ride on the coat tails of the small number of genuine quality performers in the biodynamic stakes. My feeling is that the health consciousness that is responsible for an increasing diversity in organic and biodynamically produced food will certainly result in a much larger offering of Australian wine made with these approaches. Certainly, from a quality perspective, Australia’s warm climate is substantially better suited to biodynamic and organic viticulture than the cooler, wetter situation of many European wine regions. I’d also challenge the notion that Australian wines are broadly more influenced by preservatives than those from traditional Europe. On one hand, many traditional European wines might actually taste better had they been given a small measure of preservative, while on the other, there are far too many European wines sold with excessive preservative levels. From a viticultural perspective, there are more dangers with biodynamic and organic techniques in cooler regions with a less reliable climate. When everything goes well, the results should be very good, but when disease threatens due to cold, rainy weather, the wines are very vulnerable indeed. Similarly, to make white wine without preservative is a very risky (but not impossible) process, especially if the wine is expected to last intact in the bottle for more than a few months. [/answer]
