ALIVE! Nicolas Joly - biodynamic pioneer

Nicolas Joly is a world-famous biodynamics practitioner and wine grower from the Loire. He is the founder of La Renaissance des Appellations. His talk at Alive! will be titled 'Let's Return to the True Taste of Wine', during which he will explore the true concept of an appellation contrôlée and explain how biodynamics can help build plant resilience in the face of climate change. Join him live at Alive!

We caught up with Nicolas in advance of the festival:

In simple terms, how would you explain the concept of biodynamics?

"What you are you asking is how you could sum up the history of Paris in three lines. Let’s do it. Biodynamie is the capacity of the plant to feed itself on the system that provides life to earth. Each place where biodynamie is well practised is like a needle of acupuncture for life forces.

Let me give you an example: at the very beginning of spring the vines have tiny buds. Return to the same spot six months later and you have branches and the flowers have become grapes. All that dry matter – several tonnes by hectare – 94% of that is photosynthesis. The soil is only 6%. What does it mean? Photosynthesis is the incredible capacity of a plant to feed itself on intangibles – call it forces of the sun, of the stars, of the planets - and convert it into matter. This is where biodynamie is acting.  The soil is a small part and the rest is a huge system which is never analysed in depth and on which life is feeding a plant. That is the key.

The more you understand that system, the more you will connect yourself to that system and the less assistance you need – the more health you bring to your plants and your vines. You want the cellar to be a maternity and not a hospital. Just understand how the grape comes on the earth. The less you are acting the more you are catching the originality of the appellation.

The beginning of the process is always difficult because you are losing the protection that all these chemicals can bring. On the other side, you know that you have to go in another direction. So you do it step by step, sometime not sleeping well. Being terrified of losing your crop. But the more you move into it, the more you realize that what we've been taught is wrong. That you are not working in harmony with that broader system where we all come from."

What is your understanding of a true appellation contrôlée?

"You see the impact of oenology of the last 30 years. All over the world – from Chile to Alaska – one is capable of creating so called 'good wine'. What has been destroyed is the very deep concept of what is an appellation contrôlée, which was protecting the originality of a very specific taste linked to very specific conditions.

Today with artificial farming you are obliged to use that huge technology, often in the form of hundreds of aromatic yeasts achieved by genetics - even for very well known wine. This is totally legal. When you go in this direction you are disconnecting yourself from the broad system where we are before birth and after death. They are cheated. Without realising, they are destroying the fabulous concept of what is an appellation contrôlée."

How can biodynamics help growers to build resilience in their vines in the face of a changing climate?

"First, make sure that you have your vines in the right spots. You have spots for maize, you have spots for wheat, you have spots for vines - you have to show that it's well adapted. Two, bring the seed or bring the vine that is alive. When I see what I call these stupid clones - you take one foot of vines and multiply by 100 million samples. This is absurd.

Do a real massal selection. Do it when you need more vines. Do it from your own place. Take your own wood so that the originality of the place is increased."