Biodynamic Winery Practices

Diana and I spent an extended weekend in California visiting friends in California. Of course, I wanted to see some of the practices of sustainable wineries so I convinced the group to take a tour of a biodynamic winery. All of their wines are biodynamic, sustainable, and/or organic. I wanted the "next-level deeper" tour but unfortunately a lot of the tour stayed at a higher level but still interesting to hear and see what they were doing at a high level.

Biodynamics is "a holistic, ecological, and ethical approach to farming, gardening, food, and nutrition". The winery uses a variety of plants, composting, and minerals to fertilize the grapes and treat any plant illnesses. They have a special garden on the farm with plants that they use specifically for remedying other plant illnesses and the nutrients that these plants produce (many transplanted from out of state). A lot of their practices were pretty interesting so we are in the process of trying to figure out what can and can't be replicated in our climate and in our fields. Vineyards naturally have more manual labor / acre so we have to balance some of their highly manual practices on a larger scale. Very interesting nonetheless!