At 3CUPS we have lots of Biodynamic wines on our shelves… maybe more than any wine shop between NYC and Miami. Why?  Because the wines are so complex and interesting to drink.

A few years ago I traveled to NYC to a Biodynamic wine event and tasting and the word I used then, the moniker to describe the room full of wine I had just waded through, was "alive". The wine seemed so dramatically alive in my glass. And that’s a good thing. It means the wine is the opposite of simple, boring and monolithic. With many wines made from grapes grown biodynamically the first glass tastes very different than the glass two hours later. The wine keeps your attention.

Our Weekend Wine today, which we’ll pour you a complimentary sample of this afternoon is Chateau La Canorgue Rouge, a Biodynamic wine from France.  This picture to the right is of the winemakers, Nathalie Margan  and her father, whom Jay met in France earlier this year.

Biodynamic agriculture is complicated to describe in a sentence or two but I will try.

Some folks have said it is “beyond organic”. I know of plenty of large-scale Organic agriculture currently being practiced, but know of no large industrial attempts at Biodynamic farming.  Organic tells you what you can’t do and still be labeled Organic and there is a law which covers all the rules. Biodynamics is more of a philosophy of farming and is all about what you really should do to grow the best food possible.

Click here for a one page description 3 Things about Biodynamics, and come by the shop for a full 3BOTTLES write up (about 4 pages) which give you an in depth discussion of Biodynamics and why we think it is important.

Matt Kramer is one of my favorite wine and food writers and here is his take on biodynamic wine:

“The key to biodynamic winegrowing — or some similar devotion to intensely self-sustaining agriculture and naturalistic winemaking — is  that its practitioners give us wines that are somehow luminous in their flavors and purity. They allow us, in a technological era of reverse osmosis, spinning cones and vacuum concentrators, to know what is, in the immortal words of Smokey Robinson, "really, really real."

                                                           Matt Kramer,The Wine Spectator

“I don't know if you can taste Biodynamics, but I do know you can taste passion, the single most important ingredient of all great wines.”

Ben Giliberti, The Washington Post