What is biodynamic wine tasting ?

To oversimplify, the biodynamic calendar takes into account the influence of cosmic rhythms. This system is used by biodynamic cultivation. It allows to know when certain agricultural gestures must be made, according to the position of the moon in axis with certain constellations. Seedlings, pruning or even harvesting should be done depending on the type of day.

Wine tasters have come to apply this calendar in their tastings saying wines are best on fruit days.

This relative position of the Moon is supposed to have an influence on the work in the cellar as in the vineyard., but also on the taste of wine. This influence of the moon on the taste of wines and other foods, some department stores take it very seriously and only organize their wine tastings during "fruit" days to make sure the wine is at its best. The newspaper The Guardian reveals Tesco has been using lunar calendar for more than two years, but only recently disclosed it fearing the mysticism of wine - or maybe just being taken for crazy —. This is also the case with Marks and Spencer who uses the lunar calendar to organize their wine tastings..

What plunges the most doubt about biodynamic wine tasting lies in the existence of several calendars that do not necessarily match… However, you can still have fun doing the biodynamic wine tasting test thanks to a free application for Iphone : When wine taste Best.

A scientific study published on 3 of January

As I told you before, no study tended to confirm or deny the influence of the lunar calendar on wine tasting. So we could read anything and everything on the subject. The 3 January 2017, a scientific study attempting to answer our initial question appeared under the title : « Expectation or Sensorial Reality? An Empirical Investigation of the Biodynamic Calendar for Wine Drinkers ». This study was conducted by Wendy Parr of Lincoln University, in New Zealand and Dominique Valentin from the Taste Science Center at the CNRS in Dijon.

They took an interest in this hot topic by tasting twelve Pinots Noirs from different wine regions at 19 New Zealand wine professionals. The latter had on average 18 years of experience in the wine industry and a number of oenologists work organically and biodynamically. All the wines were tasted twice in fruit day and twice in root day. They were asked to judge the wines according to 20 criteria without knowing the objective of this study and without suspecting that the tasting took place on specific days.

The twelve vintage wines 2012 to 2013 in screw caps were systematically served in the same order. For tasting, tastings ended up tasting conventional and unconventional wines. The wines were purchased directly from the producers, all kept at 14 ° C degrees and gradually increased to room temperature from 22 ° C for tasting.

Unanimous result at the tasting

The result of the tasting is final : the test showed that the wines were not better or worse depending on the days of the Lunar Calendar of Thun. The authors also monitored other factors such as atmospheric pressure, humidity, sunshine, wind speed and rain. None of these elements had an impact on the expressed quality of the wines.

The wines themselves have been chemically analyzed to determine possible differences in CO2 levels., de glucose, fructose, tartaric acid, and so on. Although the team noted "differences in some measures", but that there were no "systematic differences depending on the type of day".

According to the team that worked on this study, "It is possible that reports in various media of the wine industry on sensory effects - Editor's note due to the biodynamic calendar - are due to expectations rather than to the real differences in the wines. "

Jean-Nicolas Mouretin

The study in question : « Expectation or Sensorial Reality? An Empirical Investigation of the Biodynamic Calendar for Wine Drinkers "