What Does Biodynamic Mean- and to Ambyth?

What does Biodynamic mean? More importantly, what does Biodynamic mean to AmByth Estate? This is going to be a multi-part story, firstly written by me, Phillip Hart, founder of AmByth Estate, edited and heavily altered by my wife, Mary Hart, co-founder. There will be a follow on by what Biodynamic means to Gelert Hart, the next generation, edited by his wife Robyn Hart. The simple truth is that almost everything means something different through someone else’s eyes, so we can only relate what we, as a family, put into place and operate by. My story began with wine, memories of drinking leftover wine from my parents' dinner parties in the farmhouse I grew up in, in North Wales. We’re talking the 60’s. The wine was French and very natural, that’s how wine was made pre the “Man can do better than nature days”. This is what I was nurtured on. This also explains the taste profile of AmByth wines. They are grapes grown in the perfect wine soil of Paso Robles. They are blasted by the summer day heat and the chill of the nights. They are naturally acidic, so we don’t need to ever add acid. Because we don’t try and just grow perfect grapes, the vines hold all kinds of fruit when harvested, some green, some over ripe, some perfectly ripe, we obtain a complexity in our wine that avoids the need to add outside additives for superficial flavors. Perhaps this narrative can be added to later as I am supposed to be addressing the Biodynamic part of the story. Life is not a vacuum however, all decisions come from somewhere and the above is a tickling of where it all started for me. Mary was brought up in Oklahoma, on a 40 acre horse ranch. She was heavily influenced by her mother who followed the original organic method, learning from Rodale Press, and implementing regenerative farming that goes beyond sustainable. You can see some similarities forming here. Mary and I bought the property now known as AmByth in 1999, and 2000: 2 parcels that we made 1. We had been looking at land every weekend for 6 months and when we walked this property, no words were needed, we both nodded to each other. We were weekend farmers, working in Orange County all week, and farming on the weekends. Our joint overriding goal was to farm without chemicals. We wanted to be able to walk in the vineyard any time without fear of inhaling something bad for our bodies. We wanted our visiting friends and family to be able to freely walk the vineyard as well. We had no idea at that time that we would evolve into a couple of fanatics who believed in “All Natural”. Fast forward a couple of years. We met with a consultant, we knew he did things differently, but we didn’t know what that was. The three of us walked the property together, we talked about the proclivity of the oak trees, the steep hillsides, the birds. We didn’t talk about grapes or yields, it was a beautiful day and Mary and I were sold on this thing called “Biodynamic”. So, what is it? I’m going to give the explanation I give in the winery. It’s a method of farming that uses holistic quantities of natural herbs, flowers & silica, as a form of giving health, energy and fertilizer to, in our case, the vineyard. The idea is that these holistic infusions allow the land and the plant to adjust itself to their needs. Instead of the simplistic method of “These plants are short of x, let’s give them x.” We say, “Let’s use this holistic product to help the plant/soil find x itself”. It’s very hard to explain the exhilaration of walking the vineyard with a backpack and a group of friends doing the same thing, spraying an infusion of horsetail and nettle that we grow on the property. Frankly, with the exception that it’s quite fun and a very healthy exercise, at first you do feel a little silly. This is not the way we have been taught to do things. Adding tons of x is the way we’re taught (by the chemical companies). Some faith in nature is what is required. In ‘06 we did our first harvest. In ‘08 we bottled the wine. Our faith was rewarded. This wine was different, this wine was alive, this wine loved being opened, decanted and breathing in the air. I will always remember years earlier when I was drinking conventional wine, a very good friend of mine and a much more knowledgeable wine drinker than I, told me “Air is the enemy of wine”. I would change that statement to “Air is the enemy of conventional wine”. My knowledge came from seeing what our wine said. It’s important to note here that we decided to take our nutcase desire to be “Natural” into the winery. At first, for those first few vintages, we added extremely minimal quantities of sulfite to our wines, never anything else. As a couple of years went by I experimented with zero added sulfite wines. After many, many sleepless nights and a host of people telling me I was crazy “the wine won’t last, the wine will be no good, the wine has no protection,” in 2010 we went 100% no added sulfites. The dream was achieved, we grew pure natural wine in the vineyard and we followed the process through in the winery. Absolutely pure natural wine. For us Biodynamic has been the gateway. It is now 2024, last week we drank an AmByth 2013 Mourvedre Rose, also an AmByth 2010 Adamo (GSM blend). Both of them were youthful and full of life. We deliberately left a glass for the next day. No cork in the bottle; wondrous! Air is a close friend of AmByth wines.