Healthy Soil, Healthy Wine

One of the current “best practices” for the wine industry is biodynamic viticulture, as successfully practiced in Oregon and for many decades, if not centuries, in Europe. Wines grown with biodynamic practices have “brightness and a purity of place.” Terroir is the word, something with a lot of cache these days.

At Bergstrom Wines in Newborn, Oregon, Josh Bergstrom, the winemaker, studied viticulture in Burgundy, France. He found that the best producers had biodynamics in common, so he adopted biodynamics in his family’s estate vineyards.  This means no synthetic chemicals or fertiziers. It focuses on building soil health and adding animal and plant biodiversity. The wine produced by Bergstrom has no residual insecticides or pesticides, plus tasting “bright” and earthy, with its natural terroir due to grapes grown in living soils rather than chemically altered or degraded soils.

In September 2016, Oregon’s King Estate Winery became the largest biodynamic vineyard in the United States, as certified by Demeter USA. Demeter USA is the world’s only certifier of biodynamic farms and products.