US: Meet Willamette Valley’s ‘voodoo vintners’ and taste some magical wine

(SeattleTimes) - Near Portland, a growing cadre of biodynamic growers buries cow horns and plants grapes by the light of the moon.

It’s kind of a voyeuristic request of a “biodynamic” winemaker, but I found I couldn’t resist asking everyone I met: “Can I, uh, see your cow horns?”

I was in the Willamette Valley just southwest of Portland to meet a special breed of vintner. Just as the climate of this valley between Oregon’s Willamette River and the Coast Range produces some of the world’s best pinot noir wines, the region is also fertile ground for disciples of biodynamics, a regimen of sustainable agricultural practices formulated in the 1920s by Austrian cultural philosopher Rudolf Steiner.

Embracing routines ranging from burying cow horns filled with manure from a lactating cow at the equinox — to be dug up later and spread on vineyards — to planting grapes by phases of the moon, biodynamic vintners are regarded by many in the trade as harmless hippies, woo-woo New Agers, or simply those guys who make really good wine (and who cares how they do it?).

Biodynamics has been variously likened to “kosher farming” or “organic farming on steroids, but without the steroids.”

Across the state of Washington, only three or four winemakers are commonly known to practice biodynamics, or BD, as it’s often abbreviated. In the Willamette Valley, it’s more like 20. Is this a quirky “Portlandia” sort of thing? Something in the Oregon air? Hard to say, but consider that the Demeter Association (demeter-usa.org ), which certifies biodynamic growers in this country (slogan: “Healing the planet through agriculture”), is based in the Willamette Valley town of Philomath.