FINE WINE Fine Wine GUIDE Wine and Food Diary of Giles MacDonogh

The Soul of Wine

Written by Giles MacDonogh

The Soul of Wine

Posted: 5th July 2021

In June the chance to taste wine ebbed back at a sedate pace. The first stirrings of this new spring came in the form of a promissory case from Demeter and respekt-Biodyn in Austria. It did not make it in time for the online tasting with Monty Waldin, as British Customs and Excise grabbed it and held it hostage until I coughed up some money, but it was well worth waiting for.

The wines were all biodynamic, and therefore made according to the principles laid down for growing (potatoes) elaborated by the wine-hating Rudolf Steiner. Biodynamism involves doing a lot of things that many find ever-so-slightly baffling. Some, such as the application of various natural preparations to the soil, are obvious enough, and there are particular times and stages of the moon stipulated for planting and picking etc which follow a lead from the ancients. Horses are used for ploughing. Other ideas, such as the burying of cow horns filled with dung at the four corners of the vineyard are harder to digest, but all I can say is: if it works, it is fine by me.

In the last two or three decades wine has improved immeasurably on a technical level, but in a great many instances it has lost its soul. Biodynamism may sound like mumbo-jumbo, but it does aim to restore the soul of wine.  So, in a more or less descending order, here were the wines – ten Austrians and two Germans:


2019 Grüner Veltliner Kalkvogel, Weingut Herbert Zillinger

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Giles MacDonogh

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