Nicolas Joly and his biodynamic legal philosophy

2019/10/14
After participating in the RVF world wine tasting championship in France this time, I tried my best to arrange visits to several wineries. One of the highlights was Nicolas Joly's Chateau de la Roche-aux-Moines, whose most famous wine is Clos. de la Coulée de Serrant.

Vineyard introduction

Coulée literally means small valley. If you look at the google map topographic map, you may not feel it, but if you look at the photos, you can find that it is really a steep valley.

Opposite the photo above is the Coulée de Serrant, where you can see an area downhill being replanted.

This plot shows the distribution of Nicolas Joly's family with three AOCs. Among them, Coulée de Serrant is exclusively owned by their family, while Savennières Roche-aux-Moines is owned by other wineries.

The place with many trees in the picture above is a small valley, and the winery building is on the left side of the road.

The above two pictures can feel the steep slope, and there are a lot of flaky gravel, which will slide down if you are not careful. Far and convenient is the Royal River, and there are railroad tracks between the bottom of the slope and the river.

This building is a former monastery, now held by the Joly family.

The weather was actually very wet that day, and it had rained the day before. On the side of Roche-aux-Moines, it can be found that there are fewer stones and more water in the vineyard, but because of the difference between the vineyard and the Royal Valley Planted with a row of trees, so the wind was noticeably small. But in Coulée de Serrant, in addition to the muddy lower part, the rocky soil made the soil on this side a lot drier, and there was no tree barrier, the whole wind was much stronger, and the temperature was obviously cold.

Interview with Nicolas Joly

The youtube video below is a recording file with photos, and the text below is the focus. Personally, the more sour parts are in natural wine, Monsanto, and things like acidity and alcohol.

• you wont eat things not eatable, such as plastic, and so do the vines.
• chemical fertilizer is salt-based, if you eat too much salt, you will drink a lot of water. So, chemical based viticulture is water based. cooper, sulphur
• traditional diseases can be easily controlled by cooper and sulphur. chemical medicines (molecular synthesis) is poisoning the soil and the vine.
• technically control too much (acidity, alcohol, etc.) can give you a good wine, but no personality
• organic : not disturb the nature. focus in the vineyard.
• biodynamic: life is given to the earth because we are a member of solar system. lives receive sun light, which contains the information lets the plants flowering and fruiting. plants link with the earth, sun, etc. biodynamic treatments are used to enhance the link between the plants and the earth & sun. besides, let all other things happen, ie less interfere. 94% is photosynthesis (get energy from sun). biodynamic is just assistant.
• the spirit of biodynamic treatment preparation: put an organ of a plant with a digestive animal to create power. Horn is connected with sun. these are used to reconnect the place with the whole system (earth, sun, etc.)
• clone is convenient but stupid. if a vineyard is full of the same clone, there's no specity. low yield, no clones, and animals.
• do not interfere in your cellar. cellar is a process concentrating the maturity
• Generally speaking, people harvest too early, to avoid the alcohol, but if your vineyard is managed well, the alcohol wont be noticed.
• natural wine, don't get fooled by this, it means nothing. there's no legal commitments. even using products from Monsanto can do natural wine. if you want to catch the market without becoming organic or biodynamic, you call it natural wine.
• you may heard some people good in natural wine, some are completely fake.
• protection vs oxidation. sulphur (volcanic sulphur is not legal, because the industry controls it. The industry controls the market, including cooper and sulphur, which exists in the nature), vitamin c, potassium, filtration.
• oxidation is the death force, but a wine with energy (biodynamic) can get alone with it, that's why you can drink some wines for many days.
• Today, masse selection is less than 10%.
• if the pH is low enough (contains a lot of acidity), your wine wont be oxidized easily (without sulphur).

Original link: Phanix's Blog