The first time I drank a biodynamic wine was about five years ago at Pure Food and Wine in NY. I recall the wine was sealed with a screw cap and that made me skeptical to try the red vino. To my surprise, my dining companion and I really enjoyed it.
Over the last couple of years, it appears there’s a push towards biodynamic and organic vinification. Yet, as Eric Asimov points out in yesterday’s column of The Pour, not everyone approves of the movement.
“Most damning is the assertion that many wines regarded as natural are unclean, impure and downright bad,” Asimov says.
These adjectives used to describe biodynamic and unfiltered wines are borderline offensive. While I acknowledge that some producers practicing natural approaches to fermentation and viticulture are at risk of a higher occurrence of corked bottles, why would anyone be opposed to drinking something that is not laden with preservatives and chemicals, in addition to a higher level of sulfites? No one opposes organic produce, which also is free from pesticides.
Among biodynamic and natural produces is Movia, which is located in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, bordering Slovenia. Winemaker Ales Kristancic believes in a hands-off approach to his wimemaking, relying on the grapes to essentially produce their own wine. Whites and reds are aged in Slavonian oak casks. The white juice is left to mature on its lees for roughly two years without any manipulation. There is no racking involved, and fining and filtering rely up on the lunar cycle.
Movia’s approach may take the biodynamic efforts to a new level, but the wine speaks for itself. Even the 2002 Movia Veliko Rosso is a superb wine, yet came from one of the most challenging vintages within Italy in recent memory.
You may taste for yourself the fruits of Ales’s labor, but you may also like to attend a special winemaker dinner on June 21 at Italian Wine Merchants where Ales will present and discuss his production methods. There are roughly 10 wines to taste from the 1982 through 2007 vintages, and all are sure to please.
If nothing else, it will introduce to you the world of natural wine and prove the naysayers incorrect.
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