Entertaining

What the hell is biodynamic wine?

It’s what Bacchus poured at his orgies and Jesus served at the Last Supper: 100 percent ultranatural vino. Producers of biodynamic wine use natural predators to control insects instead of relying on pesticides; they fertilize their crops with compost made in part from manure fermented in cow horns instead of using industrial chemicals; and they follow cosmic and lunar cycles to determine when to harvest and when to bottle. In short, the goal is to create a self-sustaining ecosystem, says Mike Benziger, general manager of California’s Benziger Family Winery, one of only a handful of biodynamic vineyards in the United States.

If you think this sounds like complete New Age bullshit, you’re not alone. But there is good reason behind such green-spirited madness, and it’s based in the 1920s writings of Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner: The most delicious crops are grown in soils not exhausted by overuse and synthetic chemicals. Following such ecofriendly methods doesn’t come cheap—the entire process costs about 10 to 15 percent more than conventional production techniques, says Benziger—and that translates into a pricier bottle for consumers. But there is one potential advantage to drinking wine unsullied by the addition of chemicals such as sulfite (a preservative): It lessens the impact on your head, says David Buchholz, a neurologist at Johns Hopkins Hospital, in Baltimore. And that means a much less painful morning after.

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