Burying cow horns to make Biodynamic Preparation 500 at Troon Vineyard

Biodynamic Fake News

January 26, 2019 by Craig Camp in Applegate Valley, Troon Vineyard, biodynamics

It’s not their fault, but you see it every week. Fine wine writers printing misconceptions and flat-out wrong information on biodynamics - yes, fake news.

It’s not their fault, it’s ours. Those of us who farm wine grapes biodynamically are not doing a good job of getting out the real story. That could be because the biodynamic movement is not a monolith, but a complicated web with divergent branches and diverse self-interests. That makes for a muddled message and creates an information issue biodynamic winegrowers have to confront. While there may be divergent opinions and methods within the biodynamic community, all share a common final goal.

Here are some random recent examples of the media muffing biodynamics. The authors and publications are irrelevant as inaccuracies like these are more the rule than the exception.

”And if you’ve heard of one thing to do with biodynamics, it is probably that cow horns filled with fermented cow manure are buried in the vineyards to encourage soil fertility." "Cow horns are buried throughout the vineyard."

Biodynamic winegrowers do not bury cow horns “filled with fermented cow manure…throughout the vineyard”. In this case, the reference is to the production of Biodynamic Preparation 500. To prepare BD 500, you place very fresh, raw organic cow manure in cow horns in the fall and bury them in a single pit in a specially selected site. There they ferment over the winter and the horns are dug up in the spring. The finished BD 500 is mixed with water and applied to your soils. It assists with the formation of humus, increases available phosphorous, soil mycorrhiza and the water and nutrient holding capacity of the soil. The goal of BP 500 is to regenerate the natural microbiome and raise the quality of your soils.

“Naturally occurring cycles like moon phases dictate when to harvest ”

Moon phases do not “dictate” when we harvest at Troon Vineyard. That the phases of the moon have an impact on the natural rhythms of agriculture is a time-tested (and scientifically proven) reality. Following the ascending and descending cycles of the moon is something any natural farmer tries to do. However, the operative word here is “tries”. It’s one thing to follow these cycles in your home garden, but it’s another thing on a commercial farm. We certainly try to follow the lunar cycles, but often the realities of Mother Nature means you have to move forward. When you have to prune fifty acres of vines by a specific date, and you can’t prune when it’s raining (due to disease pressure), you can only do your best to hit the right days. When the fruit is ready to harvest, but it’s not a fruit day, but it’s going to rain three inches tomorrow your choice is easy - you pick. Any positive attributes you gain by picking on a certain day will be more than negated by the next day’s rain. We try to follow these lunar cycles whenever possible as we are seeking every advantage, no matter how small, to add that extra bit of nuance and life to our wines. The biodynamic calendar identifies ideal days for certain types of vineyard work. You try to prune on fruit days and cultivate on root days. As our goal is exceptional fruit quality, doing work on certain days is a way to fine-tune the quality of our fruit. However, we do not seek viticultural management from the man-in-the-moon, we just want a little advice, and will make our decisions based on what experience, common sense and science have taught us.

”Special concoctions of herbs, minerals, and manure may also be planted in the soil to aid fertilization.”

“Herbs, minerals and manure” are not planted in the vineyard soil to help fertilization. A range of plants (BP 502 to 507 - yarrow, chamomile, stinging nettle, oak bark, dandelion, valerian) are fermented then added to compost piles to aid in developing the right bacterial and fungal balance in the finished compost, which will then be applied to the vineyard - back to the microbiome again. It is important to note that while compost contains some beneficial minerals, it is not fertilizer. The point of biodynamic compost is to build the humus and microbiome of your soil. A healthy plant in healthy soil does not require additional chemical fertilization. This is the cornerstone of biodynamic practice. When we need to fertilize due to soils depleted by years of conventional agriculture or when growing a perennial crop like grapes, we add natural fertilizers like fish emulsion (think SNL’s Bass-O-Matic) and kelp. No biodynamic farmer would add raw manure to their field without fully composting it first. Besides the obvious health concerns, raw manure cannot do the job of properly made compost. Our compost is made from organic cow manure from our next door neighbor Noble Dairy, organic hay and our own pomace (grape skins and stems after pressing during harvest), which is then carefully composted for the better part of a year before being applied to our vineyard.

"there’s even a calendar for optimal wine-tasting days”

Then there is the currently fashionable calendar for “optimal wine-tasting days” - there’s even an app for that. However, the flower, leaf, root and fruit day thing is not part of Rudolf Steiner’s original agricultural lectures and was only added to the biodynamic culture in the 1950s by Maria Thun in Germany. Her concepts were built on research in her garden and, while her results have never been supported by independent research, there is strong anecdotal evidence that something is indeed at work here when it comes to the inner workings of plants. The base of these theories is that the moon’s gravity has an influence on the liquid in plants and soils much the same as it does on tides. A reasonable assumption. To me it is a stretch, at best, to apply this same theory to a glass of wine on your kitchen table. However, those same influences could affect the tasters themselves. Whatever the case, these concepts are a not a required part of Demeter Biodynamic certification, which is a statement in itself. Optimal wine-tasting days may have sprung from biodynamic ideas, but they are not part of biodynamic practice. However, it can be a useful excuse in a pinch if a customer is less than happy with your wine.

Biodynamics is a work-in-progress. When Rudolf Steiner gave his lectures in the early 1920s in Germany, he was living in a world in chaos, the same chaos that gave birth to the Nazis. World War I had just devastated Europe and, on the farm, the introduction of chemical, industrial agriculture terrified many people. It is in this climate that Steiner gave his agricultural lectures at the request of a group of concerned farmers. What is called biodynamics today was only outlined by Steiner himself in his lectures, and he died just a few years after giving them. Many of the practices considered essential practices of biodynamics today were layered on by those that came after him. While Steiner gave voice to the fears of that era, what we call biodynamics today is more the work of a movement than one person.

That work continues today and the growing number of winegrowers adopting biodynamics is having a tremendous impact on the movement’s future. Each year more is learned about biodynamics, and now modern agricultural science is moving towards the fundamental farming practices that define biodynamics - that the key to a healthy plant is healthy soils. Everything today is about the microbiome - in our guts and our soils. Biodynamic farmers have been giving their soils probiotics for decades. Science is just now catching up to us.

From what I have been able to read and understand (not always the same thing when reading Steiner) in Steiner’s books, he saw his concepts as only a beginning of an individual’s quest for spiritual and intellectual growth. While he did not approve of alcohol, I still think he would approve as winegrowers the world over push the pursuit of biodynamics forward. Today winegrowers are at at the forefront of connecting science and biodynamics. The winegrowing community is creating what I call practical biodynamics. Voodoo vintners we are not.

Who is to say what biodynamics will mean fifty years in the future? The only sure thing is that it will be as different from today’s practices as we are from the first practitioners in the 1920s. It will always be a work-in-progress as we will never understand everything. Mother Nature will always keep some secrets to herself.

Now that I think about it, it’s no wonder that writers struggle with understanding the practice of biodynamics, so do we. Agricultural knowledge is always evolving. There is much we don't know and much we will never know. Bringing science and biodynamics together will be the next chapter.

That’s a story worth telling well.

Some recommended reading on biodynamic winegrowing

Biodynamic Wine by Monty Waldin - certainly the most complete book available on the topic

Voodoo Vintners (in spite of the title) by Katherine Cole

Investing in a Stranger’s Future

January 13, 2019 by Craig Camp in Applegate Valley, biodynamics, Troon Vineyard

Agriculture is cyclical. Season flows into season. Vines flower then a hundred or so days later you harvest their fruit. Animals and farmers live their life cycles together on land that sustains them both. Nature wraps us in the cycle of life.

In January we begin to think of pruning and worrying about frost. What happened last vintage is behind us and only the potential of the next fills your minds. After all, the wines in the cellar are committed to their course and it is only our role to shepherd them home. That vintage is over.

There are few things other than agriculture where you so firmly press the reset button on the first of January. Of course, we build on the experience bestowed upon us by Mother Nature each year, but that’s all nuance compared to the cycles of Nature, which make all the most important choices.

We are facing a lot of new hurdles at Troon Vineyard as we begin a ranch-wide replant designed both to correct the viticultural sins of the past and to proactively move forward by selecting better varieties and then planting them in better sites. To move forward you must be willing to break ties to the past. At Troon we’ve decided to race towards the future.

New plantings will be decidedly focused on the varieties made famous by the Rhône Valley, Languedoc and Provence. These vines have proven their proclivity for our Kubli Bench terroir. Now it’s our turn to take what we’ve learned and focus on creating some truly special wines - some of which may be a decade or more away.

To some it may seem odd to embark on a voyage knowing you will not arrive at the destination, but that is farming and winegrowing. There is never any end to the cycle of seasons and you are only part of a chain that passes the baton ever-forward in a never-ending relay race. Nothing fires my passion more than knowing that I can make a perfect baton pass to the next generation. If they can make great wines from the vines we plant, I will have done more than my job. That is my goal.

For the time remaining to me, I will become a small part of the life of this vineyard and hope that I am still around to taste at least the potential of the vines we plant over the next years. We each get our vintages and it is our responsibility to enjoy every one and to hope that our work today will be rewarded with wines we will never taste made by people we never knew. They may not know us, but the vines we plant today will speak for us in the wines they make.

Every glass of wine we drink from an old vineyard carries the voices of those that planted and worked it over the decades. Listen to us, we deserve your attention.

Harvest 2018 Photo Album - Troon Vineyard in Oregon's Applegate Valley

Troon Vineyard

December 09, 2018 by Craig Camp in Applegate Valley, biodynamics, Oregon Wine, Troon Vineyard

Mother Nature was very kind to us in 2018. Rain and cool weather are things you expect during harvest in Oregon, but not this year! All during harvest we were given warm, dry weather under beautiful blue skies. This perfect weather meant we could harvest each variety at the ideal moment. There was no pressure from the weather so our pace was almost leisurely compared to a normal vintage. It was a harvest to remember as will the wines!

Picking tinta roriz, this is our last vintage of this variety as these vines will be pulled and replanted next year.

Picking starts at dawn with the vines still in the shade of the Siskiyou Mountains, which are already brightly illuminated.

Banele and Jesus picking malbec as dawn breaks.

In a biodynamic vineyard, the leaves are fully turned color and falling off when it is time to pick the fruit. This is the natural cycle of a vine.

Vineyard manager Adan Cortes bundled up against the morning cold as he harvests vermentino.

Associate winemaker and biodynamic team leader Nate Wall fills cow horns to make biodynamic preparation 500. They will buried until next spring. Making BD 500 is something you do during harvest in the fall.

Banele, our harvest intern from South Africa, places the filled cow horns in pit to be buried until next spring. The BD 500 they will produce will be sprayed on our vineyards.

Grape pomace, fresh from the press, is added to our compost pile. All the leftovers from harvest are added to our biodynamic compost piles and returned to the vineyard.

Adding pomace to a new compost pile at Troon Vineyard in Oregon’s Applegate Valley.

Life Feels Good

November 19, 2018 by Craig Camp in biodynamics

It’s just after dawn, and we’re spreading fresh cow manure with pitchforks. Our biodynamic consultant, Andrew Beedy, looks at me and jokes, “see why people use chemical fertilizers?”

Andrew is, of course, correct. It would be so much easier to buy drums of fertilizers and spray away. However, as I stand on this pile of cow dung, I am firmly convinced we’ll get the last laugh.

At Troon Vineyard when we talk about compost, we’re not talking about a few buckets of manure to fill some cow horns to make BP 500. When it comes to composting, we’re talking some serious shit as we need to generate over 200 tons of finished biodynamic compost every year.

The raw materials are simple: fresh organic cow manure, organic hay and the organic/biodynamic pomace from our own fruit. Combine these basic ingredients and let nature take its course and you end up with a magical substance. Not that there’s any magic involved as bacteria do the lions share of the work. At a biodynamic winery, you are surrounded by ferments. Right now we are fermenting wine, compost and some buried cow horns to produce BP 500. Some of the smallest things in nature are doing all the heavy lifting at Troon Vineyard.

The transformation is quite amazing. First, the manure arrives from the organic dairy next store. Dump truck after dump truck arrives along with the flies that crave their cargo. Then our crew goes to work. Starting with a layer of hay, followed by a layer of manure, followed by another layer of hay and so on. Most of the work is by hand as when the front loader dumps a bucket of manure you spread it out with shovels and pitchforks. The bales of hay are broken up and spread by hand. During the harvest season, layers of pomace are alternated with the hay and manure. We build the piles into windrows about 130 feet long and five feet high. Then come the biodynamic preparations 502 yarrow, 503 chamomile, 504 stinging nettle, 505 oak bark, 506 dandelion, and 507 valerian. The first five are applied to specific parts of the pile while the 507 is sprayed onto the entire pile. Over the next six months, the pile will be turned several times, which means all the preparations are well mixed into the pile by the time composting is finished. Just a few weeks after the manure is delivered the flies that come with it disappear as the pile quickly transforms from something that draws flies into something that attracts earthworms. Now we’re talking.

While much is made of the very photogenic burying of the cow horns to make BD 500, and 500 is indeed essential and a foundation of biodynamics, you can’t avoid the fact that out of nine biodynamic preparations six are added to the compost pile. People may debate biodynamics, but no one who knows anything about agriculture questions the value of compost. However, biodynamic compost takes things to the next level. Study after study confirms that biodynamically treated compost is higher in every key nutritional value than standard compost. Every year we will be producing enough of this elixir to apply several tons per acre. Combined with our applications of BD 500 we expect to find dramatic improvements to the microbiome of our vineyard, which will lead directly to improvements in our wines. There is nothing you can do to your vineyard that is more important than this type of composting.

After six months, the raw manure, hay, and pomace transform. What started as smelly fly food becomes rich, dark humus. The smell and flies slowly disappear and in the end you end up with something that looks and smells more-or-less like high-end, organic potting soil - two hundred tons of potting soil.

Composting is such a great experience as you can readily see the results of your efforts. What goes in is very different from what comes out. There is a real sense of accomplishment, and investment in the future of your soils, vines, and wines.

Next spring we’ll be applying BD 500 and compost - both created on our farm. While we have farmed 100% biodynamically this year, we had to purchase the BD preparations and organic compost while we went through the long process of making our own. As excited as we were in our practice of biodynamics this year, applying our own preparations and compost will be a real milestone.

There’s life everywhere. In the compost, in the BD 500, in the vines, in the wines and in us. Life feels good.

Vineyard manager Adan Cortes, with Andrew Beedy’s son Levon along for the ride, sprays BD 507 Valerian onto a compost pile.

A New Culture at Troon (and poop jokes)

October 15, 2018 by Craig Camp in biodynamics, organic

Assistant Winemaker Nate Wall fills horns.

It seems everyone either ridicules or worships the cow horns and the processes of biodynamics. Then there’s biodynamic cycles of the moon that are mistakenly confused with astrology - no, not related. You can’t blame the press for focusing on these aspects of biodynamics as they make for great photos and headlines. However, as wine writer Monty Walden recently noted, “Biodynamics is not farming by the moon.”

Biodynamics is farming by the earth.

At Troon Vineyard we recently completed one of the milestones for any biodynamic farmer. We buried our first cow horns on the estate to produce our own biodynamic preparation 500. The images of burying the cow horns may have become cliché, but for those of us who participated, it felt like a right-of-passage as we joined other biodynamic farmers around the world in what feels like a celebration to those involved. It is hard to imagine, but stuffing cow horns with fresh manure is a meaningful experience. After the horn’s ingredients ferment in our soils over the winter, we’ll take the newly created BD 500 and apply it to our vineyard soils to help build the natural microbiome that plants require to take their nutrition naturally from the soils. By letting the soil and the plants do the work we will end up with fruit that carries the energy and personality of our vineyard into our wines. Farming by the earth is the essence of terroir.

Biodynamics changes the soils, the vines, but equally importantly it changes the people who practice this discipline. Biodynamics is a structure and gives you a framework, which at the beginning you work within, but as you grow as a farmer you also go beyond. While everyone loves to focus on cow horns and moon cycles, and these are important aspects of biodynamics, these famous elements of this discipline are not the biggest changes at an estate that transforms into biodynamic agriculture. Perhaps the biggest changes happen to the people who take up this mission. Biodynamics not only transforms your soils, but your culture as a winery.

A big part of that change is that farming biodynamically is fun. You feel empowered by what you are doing and each day is a new adventure. Even though it’s much harder work than conventional farming, the risks and the efforts reward you with not only better grapes, but a better you. Filling our horns was a group effort and laced with happy banter and camaraderie. Poop jokes were as abundant as the actual poop at this celebration. Everyone including the horns were full of it. Conventional farming makes sterile soils and wines. There is nothing sterile about the world of biodynamics.

We’ll be stuffing horns again next fall. If you don't mind dirty hands and some rather unsophisticated humor come join our celebration!

In biodynamic agriculture, we bury cow horns filled with fresh cow manure each fall. These ferment over the winter and next season will be applied to our soils to help build the microbiome. of our vineyard. In this video, Banele (harvest intern from South Africa), Lindsay (harvest intern from Ireland) assistant winemaker Nate Wall and biodynamic consultant Andrew Beedy fill our horns at Troon Vineyard.

Vineyard Venom

August 19, 2018 by Craig Camp in Applegate Valley, Winemaking, vineyards, Oregon Wine, biodynamics, farming

When I first arrived at Troon Vineyard, the then vineyard manager reviewed the previous year’s vineyard applications. Other than the usual nastiness like Roundup, one product immediately grabbed my eye - Venom. I was not familiar with this product, but, with a name like Venom, I did not expect anything good.

A trip to the manufacture’s website confirmed my worst fears. Venom proved just as nasty as it sounded, “This compound is toxic to honey bees. The persistence of residues and potential residual toxicity of dinotefuran in nectar and pollen suggest the possibility of chronic risk to honey bee larvae and the eventual instability of the hive.” for the complete manufacturer information sheet click here

That’s right, it kills honey bees. All of them.

There was no more Venom or anything like that used at Troon from then on. Today, now that we have converted to biodynamic agriculture, we use products with much gentler names and impacts on the environment. For example, now we use products with names like Regalia, an organically certified biofungicide that works by strengthening the plants own defenses rather than poisoning anything and everything whether good or bad. It does not seem to be a coincidence that conventional chemical agricultural products often have scary names as, indeed, they are dangerous to everything - people as well as bees.

Products like Regalia not only sound less threatening but are less dangerous in the long-term as conventional chemicals tend to create fungicide-resistant strains that then require even more powerful chemical applications to combat them. Organic products like Regalia are based on bacteria that are already in the environment, which trigger the plant's natural defense system. In other words, we are only encouraging the plant to does what it does naturally

“When treated with Regalia, a plant’s natural defense systems are activated to protect against attacking diseases. Research shows that plants treated with Regalia produce and accumulate elevated levels of specialized proteins and other compounds known to inhibit fungal and bacterial diseases. Regalia induces a plant to produce phytoalexins, cell strengtheners, antioxidants, phenolics and PR proteins, which are all known inhibitors of plant pathogens. Regalia provides synergistic properties between a plant’s natural ability to protect itself and the effectiveness of antifungal and antibacterial protection.“ Marrone Bio-Innovations

Humans consider themselves smarter than plants, but we’re not. When it comes to producing grapes, the vine understands more about producing beautiful ripe grapes than we’ll ever know. It is arrogant on our part to believe we can do better. That arrogance has led to the use of chemicals that destroy the vines natural ability to feed and defend itself and to weaker plants addicted to fertilizers and chemicals. A weak plant does not produce the kinds of grapes that produce great wines. The single most important thing for quality wine is a strong, healthy grapevine. Our job as winegrowers is to help the vine do its work, not to do its work for it. When it comes to growing grapes, we are the apprentice and the vine is the master craftsman. This is a good thing to remember in this era of cult wines and winemakers. It is the vine and the soil that create memorable wines, not people. People are quite capable of producing commercially successful beverage wine products, but only vines and vineyards can give you sublime, individual wines. In a well-farmed vineyard with healthy vines and good soils, the winemaker's role is more as a shepherd than artist or technician. If you are not humbled by nature you are not connected to it, don’t understand it and can’t transform that power into wines that are anything other than industrial.

Biodynamics finally clicks in your brain when you realize as a farmer you are not a general in charge of a battlefield, but just another cog in the gear that makes nature work. Arrogance and chemical interventions have led to disaster. Farmers who realize their place in nature produce better and healthier foods and wines. This is a mindset that can be achieved by farmers large and small.

Now at Troon, instead of destroying honey bees we are building three aviaries with accompanying pollinator habitats. The bees deserve this respect as we are just two of the myriad of intertwined pieces that make a farm a whole. We owe them something for the past sins of our predecessors. It will be an honor to welcome them back home.

Troon vineyard foreman Adan Cortes applies biodynamic preparation 507 Valerian to our first compost pile. In the back, Levon, the son of our biodynamic consultant Andrew Beedy lends moral support. Photo by Andrew Beedy.

The Smell of Biodynamics

July 01, 2018 by Craig Camp in biodynamics, farming, organic, Troon Vineyard

I remember the smells well and they always take me back to my childhood. That warm, earthy pungent smell can only come from one thing. I grew up in a small rural town in northern Illinois on the Wisconsin border . My grandfather and grandmother, Chester and Goldie Camp, were small dairy farmers, a type of farmer that rarely exists anymore. They were organic farmers, but did not know it.

My grandparents, Chester and Goldie Camp

I stayed with them often as a child, rising with my grandfather before dawn for the morning milking. I can remember looking up at him while he shaved as he lathered up with a brush swirled on a bar in a cup - yes, he shaved before milking. Then out to the barn for what, in those days, was the very hard physical job of milking. You carried the pails of milk to the tank one-by-one. I would wander among the cows while the men worked - avoiding their back-ends and hoofs due to the stern admonitions of my grandfather. The rich, warm aromas of the animals, the feed and, of course, the manure filled the barn while the twang of country music pushed by 50,000 watts from WJJD in Chicago tinnily played from an old and very dirty radio. After the morning’s work, my grandmother would have a huge country breakfast waiting with, of course, a glass of fresh milk, cream and all, straight from the milk tank.

These memories came flowing back to me as Troon’s vineyard foreman, Adan Cortes, dumped the first load of cow manure onto our new biodynamic compost pile. Soon more will follow. We are lucky to have the Noble Family Organic Dairy as a next-door neighbor - an unlimited supply of organic manure from the thousands of happy, healthy cows they milk three times a day.

Compost is the cornerstone of a biodynamic program. While organic regulations may be focused on what you can’t use, the Demeter Biodynamic Certification follows all the USDA Organic rules, but the discipline of biodynamics takes things further with the biodynamic preparations and the concept of the whole farm. Biodynamic compost is the main vehicle that brings health to your soils and therefor your vines. Strong vines can fight off threats while weak vines require chemicals to survive. Of the nine biodynamic preparations, only three are applied to directly to the vineyard - 500, 501, 508 - while the other six - 502 to 507 - are applied to the compost piles. We began our biodynamic compost program in earnest last week starting with manure from our neighbor organic farmer, Noble Dairy. The Noble family has been farming organically since 2004. We layered this rich manure with organic hay from another neighbor and the remains from last harvest’s grape pressings to create a pile about 150 feet long and five feet high. Then our vineyard foreman Adan Cortes applied the biodynamic preparations to the new pile. It was an exciting and emotional experience for all of us at Troon. Next week we are building a second pile and this fall will be creating four more based on our grape pomace from this year’s harvest. From now on nature’s circle will be unbroken with each vintage producing the compost to feed our vineyard soils for another year.

My grandparents were organic farmers and didn’t even know it. My grandmother prepared and canned organic vegetables from her organic garden. On Sundays, they ate free-range, organic chicken - that my grandfather killed the day before. Note my grandfather could only kill the chickens my grandmother had not named. They fed their dairy cattle organic hay in the winter and they grazed on organic grass in the summer. They were either blissfully unaware of the latest chemicals or could not afford them, or both. Michael Pollan wrote in his excellent book, In Defense of Food, don’t eat anything that your grandparents would not recognize as food. Certainly, good advice in my case.

When you grow grapes for wine you are growing food and Pollan’s recommendation can easily be rewritten to don’t drink wine that your grandparents would not recognize as wine - not that my grandparents ever had a sip of wine as far as I know. Pabst was my grandfather’s drink of choice.

The direct connection of memories of my grandparents to our building our first compost pile was a warm, emotional experience for me. Agriculture is a seasonal and circular experience, if you are not emotionally connected to the past you will always struggle. Emotions and good feelings very much describe the process of converting to biodynamics. You feel good about what you are doing. While we have practiced sustainable agriculture for years, this is different and you can feel it.

It feels right. Chester and Goldie would approve.

Dr. Nick Madden studies the soils of a future block of mourvèdre at Troon Vineyard in Oregon's Applegate Valley

The Soul of Soil

May 27, 2018 by Craig Camp

It’s the smell. Your nose tells you as much as your eyes. Rich and complex - almost sweet, this is a good spot. You move a few yards and your nose tells you another story - musty and sour. Not a good spot. It seems dirt, like wine, has a bouquet.

May at Troon Vineyard was all about dirt. Moving it, working it, digging it, smelling it and, most of all, marveling at it. Soil is the foundation of everything you do on a farm. It is often said you can make a mediocre wine from a great vineyard, but you can’t make a great wine from a mediocre vineyard. What makes a vineyard great is its soil combined with climate or, as the French call it, terroir. You can’t make bad soil magically good, but you can destroy great soil with commercial, industrial agriculture. We know we have great soils on Oregon’s Kubli Bench due to the already excellent wines we have produced, but the fact-of-the-matter is that these fine soils have been abused by less than enlightened farming practices in the past. I know that if we can bring our soils back to life we can take our already very good wines to even higher levels of quality, in fact, to true greatness. I believe the way to achieve this goal is through the discipline of biodynamics. With soil, you have to put back as least as much as you take out.

We took two major steps forward for our soils and vines this month. The first, which has its own wonderful aromatics, was the construction of our compost pad for production of biodynamic compost. About an acre in size, this pad will eventually hold four compost piles. The first will be the fresh manure and the last will be compost ready for application to our vineyards. The first loads of organic manure were delivered by our neighbors at the Noble Dairy and soon we will be applying the biodynamic preparations (502 to 507) to this pile as we prepare it for application to our vineyard this fall. This is also the area where we will bury the cow horns to prepare our own biodynamic preparation 500 this fall for application next spring. This is a very exciting process for us as we not only rejuvenate our soils, but ourselves.

Our other important step forward with our soils this month was an intensive study of our vineyard by Dr. Paul Anamosa and his Vineyard Soils Technologies team. Using an electro-magnetic study of our vineyard done earlier this year, Dr. Anamosa selected seventy sites where we dug soil pits five feet deep. We spent a fascinating three days with Dr. Nick Madden and Matt Bazzano of Vineyard Soil Technologies and our biodynamic consultant Andrew Beedy as they conducted an exhaustive study analyzing every aspect of the soil in each pit. Each evening soil samples were whisked off to the lab in nightly FedEx shipments. The data we will receive from this study will guide us as we move forward not only in our farming, but in what vine varieties we select and how and where we plant them.

One thing you learn very quickly as you dig hole after hole is that the earth is hiding surprises. You think you can tell good ground by just looking, but that is not always the case. In one spot you find unseen underground water and in another, which you had dismissed, you find gorgeous, sweet smelling gravelly soils. Well-drained sites smell alive and fresh, while poorly drained soils have the musty stink of anaerobic bacteria at work - almost like the aroma of a corked wine. A wine’s bouquet truly comes from the ground up.

Our hole digging days started at 7 a.m. and ended at 7 p.m. in Grants Pass brewpubs. It seems even after twelve hours we could not get enough of talking dirt. Local beer and pizza is a fine ending to a day spent touching the Earth and connecting to people like Andrew, Nick and Matt who have devoted their lives to finding the soul of soil.

At Troon, we are combining the natural, homeopathic methods of biodynamics with state of the art science with only one goal in mind - to make world-class wines in Oregon’s Applegate Valley. To achieve this goal we have to not only search our souls, but the soul of our soils.

Dr. Nick Madden, Dr. Paul Anamosa and our biodynamic consultant Andrew Beedy digging a soil pit in our block of zinfandel planted in 1987

Soil studies in our 1972 heritage block

Nick and Matt in our heritage 1972 vineyard block.

Analyzing soil color

Dr. Nick Madden taking soil samples

In a soil pit

Dr. Nick Madden taking soil samples

January at Troon in Oregon's Applegate Valley

Turn, Turn, Turn

May 03, 2018 by Craig Camp in Drinking Wine, wine and Food, Applegate Valley, organic

For everything, there is a season. There is a flow to the year that is defined by what is being harvested. Moments defined by what we eat and drink. As these seasonal treats start arriving at the farmers market, they mark your place in the year. Peas and asparagus in spring, summer brings peaches and tomatoes, fall brings squash and, for those of us who make wine, grapes. Each of them gives you a sense of time and place.

The wines I drink dance across the calendar along with the foods I find at the market. Cold weather brings stews, risotto, pasta, root vegetables and bolder wines - Barolo, St. Joseph, Bandol, and Tannat appear on my table. The arrival of summer brings vegetables and simple grills into staring roles and white wines - vermentino, roussanne, Sancerre, Muscadet, Soave along with wines of wildly varying shades of pink often become my wines of choice. For reds, pinot noir, Valpolicella, grenache and, most of all, Beaujolais - all wines that love a light chill - bring perfect pleasure.

Things that grow react to the season and wine is no exception. Obviously, drinking a Barolo on a hot day in August is not the same sin as insisting on buying tomatoes in January. Yet, I think the full pleasures of a Barolo are more likely to show themselves with Osso Bucco on a crisp fall evening than with a caprese on a hot summer afternoon.

Wine is food, and it is more enjoyable when served in the same way. We are drawn to certain foods at different times of the year and should apply that same common sense to wines.

I’m always mystified when people tell me they don’t like white wine or they only like big reds - the wine world’s equivalent of picky eaters. To me wine is wine, and the color is decided by the food, the season and, of course, my mood. There is no arguing with taste, but I’ll argue those picky eaters and drinkers aren’t tasting at all. They’ve already made up their minds.

The more you pay attention to what you taste the more diversity of experience you crave. That terrifying question I’ve been asked many times, “If you could only drink one wine for the rest...” - is more nightmare than fantasy. The other question I’m often asked is, “what’s your favorite wine you make” or, perhaps even worse, “what’s the best wine you make” leave me speechless. They are questions without an answer.

Each wine we make at Troon has its moment, its meal, its season. What’s my favorite wine? The one in my glass.

Uploaded by Craig Camp on 2018-03-27.

Becoming One with Wine

April 08, 2018 by Craig Camp in Applegate Valley, biodynamics, farming, Oregon Wine, organic, soil, Troon Vineyard

The world feels somehow different today at Troon Vineyard. I guess you can’t reinvent a vineyard without reinventing yourself. Reinventing and reinvigorating people and a vineyard at the same time is about the simplest way I can explain our transition to biodynamic farming. Everything just feels more alive.

Over the last week what was all planning, items on a Trello board, started to become real. New equipment, new ways of thinking and a new spirit all converged at Troon Vineyard this week. The first step was just a simple piece of string

After years of plastic ties in the vineyard, many of a particularly noxious green color, we have replaced them with hand-knotted pieces of twine. The contrast between the bilious green of the old ties and the warm, earth tones of the twine ties running down the rows tying the canes to the wires could not be more obvious or meaningful. A simple change that tells of significant changes to come, we are becoming entwined in nature.

A somewhat physically more prominent change was the arrival of our Clemens radius weeder or “weed knife”. While a big financial investment, an efficient tool to control weeds is necessary if you are going to forgo chemicals like the seemingly ever-present Roundup. Many may debate about the evils of glyphosate, and all too many sustainable certifications allow it, but common sense tells us that chemicals like these are just not part of nature’s plan. It’s hard to describe how well the Clemens does its job as it fluidly dances the blade around each vine almost in slow motion - we actually it is in slow motion as the tractor can only go two and a half miles an hour while doing this work.

Other new mechanical arrivals include the Clemens multi-clean undervine brush, which, as the name implies, literally whisks away suckers and weeds around the base of the vine. Then there is a tank-like Domries disc and a Domries tri-till cultivator. We now have the tools to do the job right.

Then there was the really good shit, literally, which arrived this week. Now living in Southern Oregon, that phrase tends to refer to other local agricultural products, in our case, it was actually shit. This was the famed BD 500, the cow manure aged in buried cow horns. For this first application we had to purchase some finished BD 500, but by next spring we’ll have buried and fermented our own. The finished preparation does not remind of the original state or aromatics of the raw materials as it looks and smells more like very rich potting soil. To prepare 500 for application requires stirring it a very particular way. Troon winemaker Steve Hall selected one of our oldest barrels (for the history of place it had experienced) then after adding the 500 to around forty gallons of water we begin the stirring process. Steve and I alternated during the hour long process. First you stir in one direction until you build a deep vortex then suddenly reverse direction going violently from order to disorder. You repeat this process over-and-over for the full hour. This was a uniquely satisfying experience as you bond with the preparation that will become one with your soil. A very different experience than wearing haz-mat gear demanded by standard vineyard applications. Once prepared we poured the BD 500 into the sprayer and as the week came to a close our entire property had received this application.

Just knowing that the first biodynamic preparation is in our soils gives me both a sense of peace and accomplishment. We are on an entirely new voyage with a new mission. Just as the vines are reborn each spring, this spring Troon Vineyard is reborn along with them. Soon the buds will break into a whole new world of winegrowing.

Biodynamics will reinvigorate our soils and our vines, but it is also reinvigorating us. It is those combined energies that will be expressed in our wines. Wines full of energy are exciting wines and we could not be more excited about making them. Our desire to make special wines from what we know is a vineyard, a terroir, with exceptional potential is what started us on this voyage to begin with.

We are at the starting line of a long struggle to achieve our goals. Now that we have taken our first steps we feel like a sprinter whose energy has just been released by the starting gun.

The vines, the soil, the place, the wines and the people are all becoming one.

Alberto spraying BD 500 in a block of zinfandel

Natural Selection

March 18, 2018 by Craig Camp in biodynamics, Applegate Valley

Perfectly ripe vermentino at Troon Vineyard

Vintages come and go and with each passing harvest your focus slowly edges away from tanks, barrels and technique to dirt and climate. For wines of character and individuality, it all comes down to the vineyard, all the rest is background noise. In the cellar, it is your job to get out of the way. Actually not out of the way, that’s too simplistic. An artisan winemaker’s job is to know what to do, when to do it and to do nothing more than is necessary - minimalist winemaking is the term I prefer over “natural”. In industrial winemaking, intervention is the rule not the exception, which is the correct strategy if your goal is to produce commercially reliable wines that taste the same year-after-year.

There is little we know for sure in winemaking, but one thing I do know for sure is that if you don’t have the right dirt in the right place and the right vines in that dirt, you might be able to make good wines, but you’ll never make compelling memorable wines.

It is very simple. If you want to make exceptional wine you have to have the right grapes in the right place farmed by the right people. The right people is easy, it’s you if you have the passion, resources and discipline to do the work in the vineyard. The variety and place are much more complicated matters.

While visiting the east coast a few years ago, wondering about what it was like to grow grapes in such humid conditions, I asked a viticulturist how often he sprayed his vineyard. His response was every week - almost up to harvest. Another time I was talking to a grower from a famous west coast AVA who was farming “organically”. Asked about his spray program, he revealed that they were applying forty pounds of sulfur per acre every year. I was equally shocked in both cases because extreme measures had to be taken to grow grapes wine grapes on their sites. (Obviously calling that vineyard “organic” is a stretch of the imagination.) The vineyard on the east coast suffered from a climate unfavorable to wine grapes. The west coast vineyard was in an ideal climate, but either that individual site was less than ideal or the variety they had determined to grow in it was wrong for the site - or both.

The range of soils that can grow great wines has proven to be much broader than once thought. For example, you have pinot noir grown on high pH, alkaline soils in Burgundy, while Oregon’s Willamette Valley is dominated by low pH, acidic soils. Yet in blind tasting after blind tasting skilled, experienced wine tasters are fooled and confuse the wines of Burgundy and the Willamette Valley. However, the climate is much less forgiving than the soil - assuming healthy soils. Selecting the wrong variety for the site is almost as bad. Try to grow cabernet franc on too cool of a site and you’ll end up with pyrazine tea. Grow pinot noir in too hot of a site and you end up with a very expensive version of MD 20/20. Differences, I assure you, even amateur tasters can spot. You have to have the right variety in the right climate, the right terroir to make exceptional, memorable wines vintage after vintage.

I am always confused by terroir deniers. Any farmer knows terroir exists no matter if they are growing wine grapes, apples, asparagus or tomatoes. One major difference between wine grape farmers and other farmers is that winegrowers will insist on growing a crop that is not economically viable in their growing conditions. Or, worse yet, will insist on overcoming nature and selling wine produced from chemically abused vineyards using every winemaking trick in the book to produce commercially and critically acceptable wines.

The surest way to know if you’ve got the right vine in the right place is that the vineyard can be farmed year-after-year using ultra low-input agriculture. If you have to blast your vineyard with chemicals every week just to stop the grapes from rotting with mold before you can pick them perhaps you should rethink your choice of crops. Just because you can grow wine grapes does not mean you should.

If each year you are in a battle with Mother Nature, you will eventually lose the war.

An electromagnetic soil scan of Troon Vineyard

A First, Deeper Look at Dirt

March 18, 2018 by Craig Camp in Applegate Valley

We received our first, very preliminary, electromagnetic soil scans this week. At this point, the main use of these scans will be to determine where to dig the many, up to 80, five feet deep trenches that will we will be digging in April for analysis by Dr. Paul Anamosa of Vineyard Soil Technologies. This information will guide us as we move forward in selecting varieties for new plantings and areas for grafting. It will also provide invaluable data for rootstock selection in our new plantings.

One very fascinating point to me at this stage is that you can see denser soil patterns in long lines that coincide with vineyard rows. These certainly come from years of tractor compaction and we will be working to open up those soils as we move forward with biodynamics.

Electromagnetic Soil Scanner

February 28, 2018 by Craig Camp in Applegate Valley, soil, vineyards

Our soil studies at Troon Vineyard started today with Nick Madden here for the day to do a complete electromagnetic soil scan of our vineyard blocks. We've retained Dr. Paul Anamosa and company to do a complete analysis of our vineyard blocks. Armed with this scan data we will be selecting locations for about eighty 5 feet deep pits to fully map our soil types. This data will help us select the proper varieties as we add new vineyard blocks and replant old ones. The scanner is on the sled behind the ATV. Here is some information on exactly what Nick is doing https://d.pr/dtaYMK

”Electromagnetic induction (EMI) has been used to characterize the spatial variability of soil properties since the late 1970s. Initially used to assess soil salinity, the use of EMI in soil studies has expanded to include: mapping soil types; characterizing soil water content and flow patterns; assessing variations in soil texture, compaction, or- ganic matter content, and pH; and determining the depth to subsurface horizons, stratigraphic layers or bedrock, among other uses. In all cases the soil property being investigated must influence soil apparent electrical conduc- tivity (ECa) either directly or indirectly for EMI techniques to be effective. An increasing number and diversity of EMI sensors have been developed in response to users' needs and the availability of allied technologies, which have greatly improved the functionality of these tools. EMI investigations provide several benefits for soil studies. The large amount of georeferenced data that can be rapidly and inexpensively collected with EMI provides more complete characterization of the spatial variations in soil properties than traditional sampling techniques. In addition, compared to traditional soil survey methods, EMI can more effectively characterize diffuse soil bound- aries and identify areas of dissimilar soils within mapped soil units, giving soil scientists greater confidence when collecting spatial soil information. EMI techniques do have limitations; results are site-specific and can vary depending on the complex interactions among multiple and variable soil properties. Despite this, EMI techniques are increasingly being used to investigate the spatial variability of soil properties at field and landscape scales.”

Biodynamic consultant Andrew Beedy and Troon winemaker Steve Hall on the spot selected for our compost program.

Get Set, Go!

January 14, 2018 by Craig Camp in biodynamics, Applegate Valley, Troon Vineyard, organic

This is the spot that will become the most important place of the vineyard. We’ve chosen the spot for the compost piles.

There is a day that dreams, plans and goals become a reality. On your mark, get set, go! As we crossed the starting line this week, we were firmly aware that we were starting a marathon, not a dash. This week we took our first steps to converting Troon Vineyard to organic and biodynamic agriculture. We have our eye on 2020 to achieve our first organic and biodynamic certification, but that will not be the finish line. In agriculture, there is no finish line.

We had already taken some steps forward as we had received our L.I.V.E. and Salmon Safe sustainable certifications, but we have now committed to biodynamics as our vision for the future of Troon. Our first big step was to secure the services of Andrew Beedy ([https://www.andrewbeedy.com]). Andrew's speciality is designing a complete plan that looks at your property as a whole, not just as a vineyard. Andrew has spent his entire life immersed in biodynamics as he was born on a biodynamic dairy farm in Pennsylvania. He attended a Steiner elementary school that was attached to a biodynamic farm. As a teenager, he worked on an organic farm in England. After university, he moved to California, where he worked with his mentor, the famed biodynamic consultant Alan York, who also was the biodynamic consultant for our neighbor, Cowhorn Winery, here in the Applegate Valley. Today, Andrew’s clients span the entire nation coast-to-coast.

After walking for hours with Andrew through our vineyards and our entire farm property, you can feel your perceptions began to change as you start to look at your farm as a whole rather than as simple blocks of vineyards. This extends beyond our property lines as you understand that the Applegate Valley itself is included in a whole farm, holistic plan for farming.

With conventional agriculture you identify problems and then apply various applications. Many, many of these applications are nasty indeed. While they may solve one problem, the collateral damage they cause slowly, but surely kills your soils. Soil is the plant’s foundation, and dead soils cannot produce great wines. When you farm biodynamically you eschew these chemicals, which means you have to deal with the threats to your plants before they appear. In other words, biodynamics is all about prevention. A healthy plant can better resist diseases and pests than one living in dead soils relying on chemical fixes to deal with each and every problem.

Our new compost piles will be the heart and soul of the vineyard as this is how we will be bringing our soils back to life. One way I like to explain biodynamics is that it is organic agriculture with probiotics. It is the bacteria and fungi surrounding a plants roots that allow it to take nutrition from the soil. Conventional agriculture destroys this natural system. The power of biodynamics is that it brings the microbiome of your farm back to life, which brings your soils and plants back to life.

I will be chronicling the process of bringing Troon’s soils back to life here on this blog. Over the next weeks, we are evaluating our soils and the microbiome of our vineyards, and we will be carefully monitoring and documenting the changes in our soils and vines as we practice biodynamic farming over the next years. It is a story I am very excited to be sharing. It is a process that will change our farm, our vines, our wines and us.

It will be a steep learning curve. Could anything be more exciting?

Here is a link to the Demeter Biodynamic Farm Standard for certification.

Ten #WBC

December 02, 2017 by Craig Camp

A decade of anything seems significant in a world that gets its dander up about Twitter expanding from 140 to 240 characters. However, a decade needs more than even the new verbosity now found on Twitter can handle. Ironically, the decade and the event I’m thinking about was mainly documented in 140 character bursts on Twitter.

Having just attended my tenth Wine Bloggers Conference (WBC), which is all of them by-the-by, I can’t help but take some time to contemplate the changes in the conference and the industry over the last ten years. As that’s a topic worth far more Twitter can contain, it would seem that blogging about it is a rather obvious idea.

In ten years, WBC has gone from a wine hackers party of rebels in year one to a decidedly establishment event. I am sure it is more profitable now - it certainly looks that way - but the edginess is gone that existed in the early years, both of which are probably good things. If WBC could not show a profit it would have disappeared years ago. The edge is gone because the genre has matured and that’s the natural way of things. Wine blogging is not cutting edge anymore as well proven by wine blogs that have become the wine corner of the Internet’s equivalent of “newspapers of record”. I remember how exciting it was to discover Alder Yarrow’s Vinography in 2004. Then it seemed subversive, today it is a standard recognized as important by wine writers of all stripes.

In year one, 2008, the conference was controlled more by the attendees than the organizers. Held at the delightfully kitschy Flamingo Hotel in Santa Rosa, in the heart of Sonoma wine country, at #WBC08 you were more likely to find a bigger crowd by the pool pulling corks than in the seminars. Sonoma was the perfect place to host this first year as there were a lot of rebel winemakers there too. In the evenings we took over an undecorated conference room where many dozens of bottles of wine contributed by the bloggers, not the sponsors, were shared in a free-form bacchanalia. There was no controlling this crowd and no one tried.

It cannot be forgotten that the original crew that attended the first WBC was a creation of Twitter. In those days, Twitter was more like a chat room, not at all like the behemoth it has become. We had all met each other online and had become a community before we ever met each other at #WBC08. Meeting in person all of these people that had become your friends online instantly transformed the experience into a celebration - a celebration of new friendships that continue to this day.

Perhaps sensing the un-conference in years to come, a group of us did not stay at the hotel, but at the beautiful vineyard home of @PinotBlogger (Josh Hermsmeyer). My other roommates were @LennThompson and @WineHiker (Russ Beebe). It was here that the first “going rogue” party happened, but we did not know it at the time. Dozens of wine bloggers descended on our house that night and it is impossible to guess how many bottles were opened and shared. It was a good thing the house was out in the country as I am sure any neighbors would not have been pleased.

Needless to say, after such an experience few who attended year one missed year two.

The success of the first year meant that in the years following the inmates lost control of the asylum. But this was not to last for long as soon the un-conference, so named at the first year of WBC, would return. There needed to be a place for the old guard, the hackers. Over the years, the original crew would be joined by like-minded wine bloggers as they lost their newbie status and started to understand the real value of the event. That value is the community and the event itself is simply a framework to bring us all together.

The organizers of the Wine Bloggers Conference have a real dilemma. How do you create a conference that will please both veterans and newbies? The answer is simple, you can’t. This conflict was sure to mean an un-conference would have to exist. The un-conference is not an insult to the organizers or the event, but is a natural expression of the maturity of the event and the complexity of the now wide range of people that call themselves wine bloggers. In my opinion, it adds richness and a depth to the event that keeps the veterans coming back for more.

The tenth conference, #WBC17 was held at the Hyatt Santa Rosa, quite a contrast to the original site at the Flamingo. There is nothing kitschy about a Hyatt. Smooth and professional from start to finish, the Wine Bloggers Conference reflects the state of wine blogging today. No longer just a bunch of wine hackers, wine blogging too has become smooth and professional. A quick look at Twitter today and you’ll find wine bloggers being whisked off, all expenses paid, to wine regions all over the world, their published words now just as coveted by wine marketers as those in the increasingly irrelevant glossy wine magazines.

There have been many WBC highlights over the years: Walla Walla, Penticton, Finger Lakes, Willamette/Portland come to mind right away. At every event, other than year two, I have been a host of a un-conference event. But it was not until #WBC11 (the fourth conference) in Virginia that my, now annual, WBC un-conference Saturday night dinner came into being. What started as a few people escaping in search of better food and air conditioning (summer in Virginia!) evolved year-after-year into a WBC tradition. I will say that none of this would have happened without my friend and un-conference dinner partner-in-crime Thea Dwelle (@LusciousLushes). I am always honored by those that attend my humble dinners, while they may not have the elegance of the events at the big corporate winery sponsors, they do have the best conversations and, if I say so myself, more interesting wines and people.

Now that the hackers have lost control of the conference itself, un-conference events are the only way left for wineries that are hackers to share their wines with WBC attendees. The costs of official sponsorship at WBC are now simply out the range of small wineries. I, for one, will refuse to give up on WBC, but from here on out you’ll only find my wines at the un-conference and, of course, at my dinner.

#WBC18 will be in Walla Walla once again. A wonderful town and wine region. However, reflecting the now corporate nature of WBC, they have planned the event in October. That means during harvest, which means actual winemakers will, at best, have a difficult time participating. I understand why the organizers are not concerned as most winery representatives that attend don’t get their hands very dirty during harvest. Marketing and sales directors will have no problem attending and, perhaps, this better represents what the conference is about today. However, I will be there at least one day. There is a dinner tradition I need to keep up.

A WBC without a un-conference would be soulless, like a wine without terroir. Don’t worry, you’ll be able to find all the wine hackers at #WBC18 on Twitter. We’ll be pulling corks with the same passion we did in year one.

See you at #wbc18alt.

Going Rogue Dinner #WBC15 in Corning New York

Provence 1970 and How We All Changed the World

October 29, 2017 by Craig Camp in Cooking

My sister Susan is an excellent cook and her garden is a thing of culinary beauty. I’m not a bad cook either, if I say so myself. This is a gift from our family. While we were both raised in the fifties and sixties, the dark ages of American cooking, we were lucky as, for us, food was something tied to family and celebration. Our mother lovingly prepared our meals and dad manned the grill in summers. We always sat down as a family for a dinner that did not include a television set. Our parents also loved to entertain, so adults gathering around food and cocktails (wine had not yet been discovered in Harvard Illinois) made good food and good times synonymous for us.

Then there was our grandmother, my mother’s mother Goldie, who was simply one of the greatest cooks I have ever experienced. Her repertoire was formidable, but it was only in one genre - classic midwestern farm cooking. This was a hybrid of English and German cooking that had been transformed into the cuisine of the American prairie. Portions were substantial, as this was fuel for families spending their days doing the hard physical work that was life on a small dairy farm. Her Christmas dinner was a tour de force: roast turkey, roast beef, ham, oyster stuffing, mashed potatoes drenched in butter and seemingly countless other side dishes. A table bent under the weight of pies and cakes. Almost thirty of us would gather at one long table and eat until we could eat no more. But eat more we would as the pièce-de-résistance would be unveiled - the suet pudding. She would only make this pudding once a year at Christmas. It was sublime. It was also the single richest dish I have ever eaten in my life.

Special note must be made of my grandmother’s pies. Thank goodness these were the days before cholesterol and Crisco. Goldie made her pie crusts with lard and the fillings from what grew on the farm - apple, rhubarb, cherry. If you have never tasted a pie crust made from lard, you have not tasted a real pie. The memories of these pies (rhubarb was my favorite) makes my mouth water to this day. Growing up I never wanted a birthday cake, I wanted a birthday pie.

Such positive memories of food in your youth cannot help but lead you into the kitchen yourself. When I started to get seriously interested in cooking, I was lucky to have some very special teachers. There was Julia Child, James Beard, Richard Olney, M.F.K. Fisher and Marcella Hazan at my side in my kitchen as I taught myself to cook. Their cookbooks were stained and abused as I tried to follow the recipes. Indeed my first copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking was severely singed on the back cover due to a brush with a hot stovetop. To me, the wear and tear on these books was a badge of honor. I inhaled these books like a mystery fan reads Sherlock Holmes.

This was learning to cook in the 1970s. Food had been born again in the United States led by these now venerable cooking and food writers. My entire life and career was influenced by these writers and they led me down the path to my love of wine and my, now over thirty-five years, career as a fine wine professional. Due to them, for me food and wine has always been the same topic and it is this philosophy that guides my winemaking goals to this day.

I was filled with these memories and feelings as I read a book that has to be profoundly moving to anyone who experienced the rebirth of American cooking . Provence 1970 by Luke Barr chronicles the experiences of M.F.K. Fisher (his great aunt), Julia and Paul Child, James Beard and Richard Olney as their love of France and French cuisine transformed American cooking and eating and then, eventually transformed them as they went beyond the limits of French cooking and help create a uniquely American food and wine culture.

Provence 1970 is one of those books that brings you a touch of sadness when you reach the last paragraphs as you become so personally involved in the world the book recreates as your own memories weave together with the events and experiences so vividly and thoughtfully recounted by Barr in this lovingly written book. As you read the last words you know that the world the author has created is one you do not wish to leave.

Perhaps you have to be of a certain age to feel the emotional tug that this book had for me. The food culture in the United States no longer takes a back seat to those of Europe. American restaurants are on the cutting edge of fine dining, leading the way, not following, to the next big thing. That American wines are as good as any made anywhere is old news, not even considered by younger wine buyers. Fabulous natural cheeses, charcuterie and excellent espresso are easy to find throughout the country. Farm-to-table restaurants and farmers markets with gorgeous organic, even biodynamic, produce are commonplace coast-to-coast. When I first started visiting Europe in the seventies I would smuggle cheeses, prosciutto and salami back hidden in my suitcase because such things did not exist at home. Today’s travelers don’t need to bother except for sentimental reasons as, not only can you find those things here, but often find better products made by artisan producers in their own home towns. The food culture in America has been totally transformed in just fifty years.

Provence 1970 recounts the beginnings of this change, but also tells the story, not only of my introduction to good food and wine, but the story of many, many thousands of American cooks, both home and professional. The American cooks, that learned to cook from the likes of Child, Beard and Hazan together changed the world of American food and wine.

It was a circuitous route we took to return to the locavore, organic cooking of my grandmother. We had to pass through the rigid rigors of haute cuisine and a Francophilia driven by our culinary insecurities to get back were we started from - local food, simply and well prepared. Which, come to think of it, also are my favorite dishes in France and Italy.

Christmas dinner will be here soon. As I plan the menu, my grandmother will be there with me. I hope to make her proud as the flavors of her table live in me and are a part of who I am. I can taste the suet pudding now.

Winemakers (and Vineyards) Need to take Probiotics Daily

October 22, 2017 by Craig Camp in Winemaking

Troon Harvest 2017 Malbec, Tannat, Syrah (1).jpg

Your microbiome is suddenly fashionable. The bugs in our gut are chic. We can’t get enough of probiotics and fermented foods. This is a very good thing and a trend that will certainly lead to healthier people. The bugs love us and now, finally, we love them. Good thing, because we would not exist without them.

However, the microbiome is not just in your gut. It’s everywhere - literally. It’s part of everything you touch, breathe, eat and drink. Yes drink. That includes wine. Bugs in wine? Not so much really because alcohol and bugs do not get along well. But before fermentation wages its war on bacteria (sometimes more successfully than others) there are grapes in a vineyard and the key to a healthy vineyard and great wines is the microbiome of the vineyard itself. Just like us, for vineyards there are good bugs and bad bugs and the key to good health is maximizing the good ones and minimizing the bad ones.

Conventional farming has destroyed the microbiome built up by Mother Nature over the millennium. The resulting soils are dead requiring mainlined injections of petrochemicals to grow anything at all. Soon, like any addict, the plants require stronger and stronger doses to survive. A vicious dead-end cycle that ends up the same for the plant or the drug addict.

Just like we need to take probiotics to repair the damage we’ve inflicted on our microbiome, a vineyard needs the same remedy. Unfortunately, for a vineyard it’s a bit more complicated than simply taking a pill. However, there is a proven cure - biodynamics .

First let’s make one thing clear - I believe and revere science and scientists. I know that climate change is real. I know that astrology is ridiculous and that relativity is not. So how does someone who believes these things also believe in biodynamics? That’s a good question and in a very real sense many aspects of biodynamics and science are in total conflict. Yet, I think with deeper thought and research the gap between them is not a chasm, but is in fact semantics. Clearly there are aspects of biodynamics that are absurd to any educated person, but there is a major problem here because, very simply, biodynamics works. Biodynamics not only works, but works dramatically well. The list of wineries using biodynamic agriculture is a who’s who of exceptional winemaking. The results speak for themselves.

Often it is argued by anti-biodynamic crusaders that it is not biodynamic practices that improve a vineyard, but the simple fact that the owner must spend more time in the vineyard. Without a doubt there is an element of truth here for as they say, “the best fertilizer for a vineyard is the owner’s boots.” Yet there are many dedicated viticulturists who spend endless hours in vineyards that produce flavorless wines from dead soils that have had the soul ripped out of them by chemicals. Time spent in the vineyard alone cannot be the answer.

However, if you strip the voodoo out of Steiner’s biodynamic program (and Steiner was loaded with voodoo ideas) what you get is a discipline dedicated to putting the bugs Mother Nature intended to be there back into your vineyard. Burying horns filled with manure, hanging stuffed animal organs in trees then spreading their contents over your vineyard is very simply creating a probiotic for your vineyard. Almost all of the numbered biodynamic preparations are focused on composting. It’s in the area of composting that biodynamics meets science as there is hard data showing that compost treated by biodynamic methods is more active microbiologically than untreated compost. I believe this extremely proactive composting program is the heart and soul of what makes biodynamics effective. You are simply creating a giant probiotics therapy program for your vineyard. It is here that science and biodynamics reconcile. Any plant scientist will tell you that a healthy microbiome is key to a plant taking nutrition from the soil. Kill nature’s bugs and your vines will slowly starve to death. It is at this point that biodynamics goes beyond simple organic farming, which tells you what not to use, but biodynamics goes a step farther by telling you what to put back in. The goal of biodynamics is not simply sustainable agriculture, but to restoring and building the microbiome of your vineyard.

There is an obvious conflict between science, facts and biodynamics. I have no doubt that there are parts of biodynamics that are total hooey. The problem is that we don’t know which parts work and those that are a total waste of time. That means for now a winegrower committed to both a natural sustainable vineyard and great wine must take the bad with the good of biodynamics until science and biodynamics catch up with each other. Until they do and we fully understand how and why biodynamics works I do not intend to take a risk that would mean wines that are not all they can be.

Starting in 2018 we are launching our program at Troon Vineyard to achieve biodynamic certification. We do this fully understanding that some of the things we’ll have to do will seem absurd, but we know that others will create miracles in the vineyards that will take our wines to greater and greater heights. To achieve that, I am more than happy to practice a little voodoo.