Biodynamic Wine, Demystified by Nicolas Joly

A visionary and a keen defender of nature’s purity, Nicolas Joly’s second book on biodynamic wine (no, I haven’t read his first Wine from Sky to Earth) is aimed at true believers, but not only at them. Published in 2008, before RAW movement struck both minds and senses of somms and wine drinkers alike, gaining more popularity by the day due to constant efforts of jolly natural winemakers and able journalists (see earlier review of Isabelle Legeron’s Natural Wine), Joly, who has been making biodynamic wines since the 80s, it not earlier, is a revered patriarch of the movement.

While I am but a mere aspiring wine enthusiast and a hardcore materialistic atheist at the same time, this book on earth energies transmitted from the soil, dynamised with herbs and dung fertilizers, moon phases and star constellations left me thinking and rather perplexed.

On one hand, it would require a force unknown to me to make yours truly believe in the macrocosmic forces and their direct impact on wine the way Monsieur Joly preaches it, yet a shadow of doubt polluted my soul.

On top of that, some parts of this book, written in plain understandable language and offering a rather gloomy perspective of our own way too materialistic world, I think have a proper merit of being taught in school. Like Chapter 2: Errors in Agriculture, which paints a horrible picture of how conventional commercial winemakers approach their terroirs and their vines.

All in all, one thing remains an unquestionable truth – Joly’s very own unique and exceptional white wines from the Loire valley speak louder than any words and any inappropriate funny jokes on lunatics who bury cow horns at the solstice.