There are the kind of transcendental states that a glass or two of spirits can produce, and then there are the sincere and deeply felt spiritual beliefs of both mainstream religions and metaphysical movements. In the late 19th and early 20th century a wide spread fascination with spiritualism, the belief in the presence of unseen powers, created movements that influenced the rise of the belief in natural foods and natural cures over what is man made and synthetic.
Today, the appeal and availability of organic foods has become so overwhelming that it is almost impossible to set standards for what the word“organic” means. However when it comes to wine making, there is an agricultural practice being adopted all over the world called Biodynamic Viticulture or BD for short, that goes far beyond the standards of every day organic agriculture in applying spiritual beliefs to the cultivation, fertilization and nurturing of grapes.
Biodynamic agriculture derives from a landmark series of agricultural lectures that Rudolph Steiner, founder of Anthroposopy and the highly regarded Waldorf Schools, gave in 1924. The course was based on both very specific agricultural principles and his belief in the ecological, energetic and spiritual forces in nature.
As practiced by a charming Englishman named Robert Eden, who twenty years ago bought an old vineyard in the Languedoc village of La Liviniere, his vineyard is producing vibrant tasting wines that promise to intensify in depth and character as they age. Eden chose well, Liviniere is the first village of the Languedoc to be allowed to put its name after the Minervois La Liviniere appellation of Languedoc, indicating that this specific area produces distinctive quality wines.
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Strictly following Rudolph Steiner's teachings, Eden is now producing sensational
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Chateau may be a misnomer for the estate since the principle structure on the property when he bought it was a decrepit stone barn, but Eden studied the composition of the soil and thought that the old Grenache vine stocks could, with careful Biodynamic attention, be brought back to life.
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East of Eden, Somewhere Far Beyond Organic