Everyone knows there’s nowt like old fashioned farmyard muck to get
gardens blooming and crops flourishing. But a single bucketful of cow poo to
fertilise a whole 12 acres of vineyard?
This is not your average muck spreading spree.
Last week, the vineyard was the scene of a fertility ritual on Friday.
The practice itself only dates back to 1924, but it draws on a concept of
harmony in nature that goes back millennia: A pile of clean, hollowed out horns
from female cows lay waiting for a team of enthusiastic helpers to fill them
from that one bucket of fresh organic cow dung.Watch us explain why in this video!
This ritual is fundamental to the practice of biodynamic agriculture
founded by the Austrian philosopher and social reformer Rudolf Steiner who
promoted ‘spiritual science’ in the 1920s. His biodynamic agriculture was the
first of the organic agriculture movements and dealt holistically with the
whole natural circle of soil, plants and animals, including, importantly,
cosmic forces.
As our regular blog followers will know, we believe in the power of
biodynamic farming for soil fertility and plant health. Though we are one of
few to practice this in the UK, we are not alone. Major supermarkets Tesco and
Marks and Spencers follow the biodynamic calendar when the buyers do their wine
tasting. The year is divided up according to the lunar influence into leaf,
flower, root and fruit days and fruit days are regarded as the most auspicious
for wine drinking. It is believed that the wine actually tastes better on fruit
days.
So back to those cow horns, each now neatly packed with poo. We carried
them up through the vines to a pit where they were laid carefully to rest,
mouths pointing down so that they did not fill with rainwater and go mushy over
the winter. They were covered with soil and the burial finished with a pile of
stones to deter animals. And there they will stay until April or May, when they
will be lifted out again and their precious contents emptied out.
By then, the manure will have a completely different consistency – dark
and crumbly and according to biodynamic principles, packed with cosmic forces.
Finally, cricket ball sized roundels of the dung are dissolved in barrels of
water and the liquid gets sprayed on the vineyard. Like homeopathic medicine, a
little is said to go a long way.
We bury horns at three places around the vineyard. The horns are from
female cows as they are the most fertile animals and they absorb the cosmic
influences. The best way to describe it is that when we spray it, even though
it is only a tiny amount, it acts as a trigger to regenerate tired soil and
improve its fertility.
We have actually seen first hand in France and Australia the difference
between the quality of soil on biodynamic vineyards and that on chemically
sprayed ones. It is the difference between living and dead soils Many of the
great vineyards and wineries around the world are convinced by the biodynamic
approach, including Domaine Leflaive and le Roy in Burgundy, Coulee de Serant
in the Loire, Beaux Freres in Oregon, Hensche in Australia and jean-Pierre
Fleury in Champagne.
"But does it make a difference to the wine?" I hear you cry!
Well, if you ask us, biodynamic practices in the vineyard encourage a natural
harmony between the earth, the vine and the cosmos as nature intended, without
the need to use systemic chemicals. We believe that this results in a more
naturally healthy bio-diverse and sustainable vineyard, producing better
quality fruit and ultimately better quality wine, with a unique sense or place
or terroir.
