Interview with Nicolas Joly

When in France this year, I heard the name of Nicolas Joly for the first time. "He is "the one and only" if you wanna talk about biodinamics. He is the main referent in this area nowadays" said to me Luzia, a colleague friend from Austria, interested on attending Jolie´s confference "Le rennasaince des appelations" at Vinexpo.
From that day, I began to be interested on biodinamics, his creator, Rudolph Steiner and Mr N. Jolie, who in the other hand, owns Le Coulée de Serrant, one of the most famous biodinamic chateaux in the South of France. Finally Ive got the chance to interview him, on line.
I will publish this interview in parts, so - as followers of biodinamics - we can, step by step, absorbe the concepts of a philosophy which only aims to love and respect vines, earth and man.

- Mr. Jolie, you have repeatedly said conventional agriculture belongs to the past. But still 90% of the world is making wine in conventional ways. In a world where money and profits seem to be key words, what the biodinamic method has to offer in terms of saving money?
- First lets look at the present situation .More wine consumers in the world would agree to day to tell that wines worldwide have a fairly similar range of tastes .So one could say that the "local" taste or the originality of taste developed by each wine place( this was the deep meaning of an AOC) is gone . AOC were created for bringing to the consumer a garanty of specific local tastes; so whereever you were in the world you had the garanty to find inside a bottle of an a specific taste of a small place well adapted to vines . Why is it gone? Mainly because of farming . To make it short weedkillers have killed the living organisms of the soil which permited the roots of the vines to feed itself on each geology ; and mollecules of synthesis have affected photosynthesis which convert each climate into a specific tastes. This have forced the implementation of a sophisticated technology in the cellar through the use of more than 35O aromatic yeasts which permits to have good but completly atypical wines .This is fabulous ground for implementation of biodynamie which does exactly the reverse!
- Today there are many experiences around the world calling themselves biodinamics, but some of them use for expample, microoxigenation on wines. Is there a "map", a "formula" to tell what is biodinamic and what is not?
- It is certain that today many use the word biodynamie for what we could call "marketing reasons", but many are on the right way . Biodynamie is not often well understood . Biodynamie is the first farming since a long time which does not act on mater but acts on the energetical process behind mater; which for example permits a bud to become few month later , a grape .Keep in mind that the earth isolated from the solar system would become a dead body .The connections of the earth to the solar system is purely energetical ( wavelenght and frequencies ). Biodynamie reinforce the link of the plant to the energetical matrix which brings life to the earth. To obtain these effects you need very accurate practices different on each place. A bite like tuning properly a musical instrument ! If this is welldone if the place fits for a vineyard, if the cepage are right etc then in the cellar everything happens well on its own and the wine have a great originality which no one else an copy ( taste a Coulée de Serrant you will see ) . If the "musical instrument" ( vineyard ) is not well tuned to the forces the vines needs to fully express their potential then the artifices of technologies are needed .