Characteristics and peculiarities of Sangiovese wines in three different areas of Tuscany, made from grapes cultivated and vinificated according to the principles and methods of Modern Biodynamic Agriculture
Abstract of an investigation presented at the 3rd Simposio Internazionale sul Sangiovese - Firenze, Palazzo dei Congressi, 3-5 dicembre 2008
by Leonello Anello - Biodynamic Agricultural Sciences Section

We intended to verify and assess the applicability of some projects of farming Sangiovese vineyard blocks in three different areas of Tuscany and wine-making of the grapes hereby obtained, according to the methods of Modern Biodynamic Agriculture.
Modern Biodynamic Agriculture implies the most complete application of the principles Rudolf Steiner postulated on the occasion of the lectures he delivered to German farmers in Koberwitz on June 7-16^th,1924. It operates by carefully verifying the results of each agricultural act and practice, and avoiding any theorization devoid of objective confirmations.

Moreover, the concrete applicability of its principles to the everyday agricultural practice in a modern vine-growing farm it is to be considered fundamental.

As to the wine grapes growing, a few external means such as seeds for green manure, copper and sulphur for protection, lithothamne and bentonite as adjuvants, were used. On the side of the wine making, only grapes, biodynamically grown for at least three years, were vinificated, operating in farms where wine cellars were certainly and exclusively hosting these peculiar methods of wine making.

Vinification was carried out relying exclusively on the endogenous components of the grapes, without any biological or chemical input and excluding any physical process. The only exception was the utilization of potassium metabisulfite up to a maximum content of sulphur dioxide in the bottle from 28 to 50 ppm.
The results attained in the vineyards allowed to submit to vinification grapes in very good health conditions, with a yield of 600-700 kg per hectare, that offered very interesting analytical results, with ideal total anthocyanins/phenols ratio and total acidity/sugars ratio, capable to allow a wine making procedure devoid of any correction. Very impressive was also the absolutely not conventional relation between the readily assimilable nitrogen content of the musts and the course of fermentations.

The wines so obtained, through regular spontaneous fermentation courses, have showed up to be exempt from any technical defect in execution. These wines underwent many tasting sections, often without declaring their methods of production.Musts and wines were analytically followed in their course up to the bottling, and analysis of some of them were carried out up to two years after their bottling.

The equilibrium of the analytical parameters and their stability in time proved to be recurrent as much as the relation between free and total sulphur dioxide sounded relevant. These Sangiovese wines generally showed up to be precociously ready to drink, smooth, with no astringent or bitter marks, presenting excellent structure, relevant extracts and high polyphenolic components.

The results attained allow to foresee the concrete applicability in vine growing and wine making of the above methodology, that, even if being in need of further and more in-depth investigations, is worth being signalled also for the positive reception by the ultimate consumer.

Manifesto

Modern Biodynamic Agriculture represents the most coherent application and evolution of the principles which Rudolf Steiner presented to farmers in the lectures he gave in Koberwitz on June 7th-17th, 1924.

We owe to a man like Rudolf Steiner and his talent for critical revision the preservation of the immense legacy of knowledge that accompanied the cultural and agricultural development of very advanced peoples of the past ages, both in the East and in the West. Rudolf Steiner was neither an agronomist nor a farmer. His aim was to lay the foundations for the development of the agriculture of the future, not in a dogmatic way, but through constant investigation: experimenting, verifying and translating the results into numbers and tables clear enough to be divulgated and used by everyone.

After Steiner's death, in Europe, Biodynamics underwent a process of intellectualization that emphasized its esoteric drift. In Italy, too, biodynamic agriculture was not able to assert its authority, overwhelmed by religious-philosophical tasks that by-passed and ignored agricultural practice. Modern Biodynamic Agriculture intends to identify and spread a working method, which can be applied without ambiguity, where man, once he has regained his integrity - without any need to separate the spiritual from the physical dimension - can freely grasp an understanding of nature and how it can be applied in agriculture.

Modern Biodynamic Agriculture is free from the limitations of materialistic science, yet it has to come to terms with it, and it is secular, since it does not need to find a final justification in any principle beyond itself. For this "parallel" science, which has its own vocabulary, we propose a new language which can clearly and efficiently transmit its principles that, far from depending for their interpretation on a few gurus, will enable Modern Biodynamics to become the agriculture of the XXI century.

This method provides an ethical practice of agricultural production which is:

As a starting point, we take up those elements of Modern Biodynamic Agriculture which concern viticulture and its product, wine, that have been neglected for ages by the followers of anthroposophy and are being rehabilitated, since biodynamic wine has become a fashionable product. We have been growing grapes and making wine for more than twenty years, since the response you get from a vineyard cultivated according to the Modern Biodynamic Method is remarkably rapid and in its superb evidence allows us to focus on the essential concepts of Biodynamics.

Biodynamic Viticulture, in its modern and secular dimension, if it is really put into practice, is not only a label that may help sales, but represents the "manifesto", a compass for the agriculture of the future.

The I vini biodinamici ® label is not a commercial brand, but it is a seal of quality which attests the efficacy of a working method (the Modern Biodynamic Method), defined and improved along the years, and the absolute excellence of the results obtained by its application in the vineyards and in the cellar.>

This label marks the best wines produced by Italian wine makers who grow their grapes following the Modern Biodynamic Method and make wine according to its criteria. Guidelines for production have to be strictly respected.

The I vini biodinamici ® label will distinguish those wines which, for their organoleptic qualities and through laboratory analysis, will be recognized, year by year, as absolutely excellent. These wines present unique and unmistakable characteristics and fully express their territories, with nuances and accents capable to surprise and open new perspectives on sensorial approach and wine knowledge to connoisseurs and lovers..

This wine has been produced according to the scientific criteria of the modern biodynamic method, that is the application and the evolution of the impulses Rudolf Steiner handed over to farmers in 1924.

We worked the soil for our grapevines, we enhanced its biodiversity by sowing seeds of a thousand plants in the rows and we distributed the biodynamic preparations enabling it to receive the vital elements and make them flow into the vines. We helped vines defend themselves from parasites by using small amounts of copper and sulfur in forms that don’t penetrate the plant’s lymph and therefore they are not traceable in the wine.

We farmed without irrigating. Not one drop of water was wasted.

By facilitating the action of the natural elements in the cellar, we extracted every gift the grapes contained. We entrusted air and its light ether the task to structure and define our wine. We relied on warmth, the ether of the fire element, to elevate the expression of the grapes’ nectar from its merely physical dimension.

This wine is simply a metamorphosis of the grape; it doesn’t contain added substances, even those commonly admitted by laws and regulations, and it did not undergo any physical or chemical treatment. Just a very small quantity of sulfur dioxide was added, whose total content is exactly reported on this label. Lastly we committed our wine to this siliceous glass bottle to keep it vital for long; when it meets the air that moulded it, it will live again and its qualities and complexity will increase.

This wine and our vines are gmo free.

The VINE was nourished by the Cosmos through the Earth in which it lives.
The GRAPE fermented only with its own yeasts.
The WINE we give you is from one type of vine only and fully expresses its terroir

We are convinced that the way we work represents the future.

Leonello Anello