Personalities

Nicolas Joly: "It’s all about frequencies and wavelengths"
"Magnum" №3(6) March 2006

New biodynamic movement has taken off the ground mainly through the efforts of only one person.

Nicolas Joly is working by natural energy laws for the past twenty years, and his philosophy has become a practical guide for dozens of winemakers on all continents.

Nicolas Joly owns a historic Coulee de Serrant vineyard in the Loire Valley. What else, but his great wines, should the winemaker be discussing? Joly, though starts a conversation with a statement that sounds like a thunder in the clear sky.

- If I had to spend all the time just talking about my wine, I think it will not make sense to my life. Liquid taste of stone, liquid taste of terroir — to me this is extremely boring!

- To me it is more important to talk about the philosophy behind. I think it’s extraordinary. There are several ways of approaching biodynamics. It is interesting is to explain that before coming physical, life has an energetic form. Then you have a completely different understanding of what is farming, what is nature. It is winter now. The vineyard is sleeping — you have no leaves, no buds. Come back in six months — you will see a lot of branches, leaves and grapes. This matter doesn’t exist today, but in summer it weighs several tons per hectare. People think all this comes from the soil, it’s a complete nonsense. More than 95 % comes from photosynthesis which means that a plant is capable of catching the intangible light and heat. It produces celluloses, amino acids, sugars out of them. The plant has an ability to catch microcosm, or a certain type of energetic organization, and it turns it into matter. If you want to understand the microcosm which is earth, you need to move to the understanding of the macrocosm, which are solar and stellar systems, first.

Now if you approach farming with this understanding, biodynamics is king. We don’t bring in new matter. You have the same difference between biodynamics and organic farming like between a telephone with wire and a mobile telephone. People say, "How can a few grams of substance per hectare work?" I answer, "You have a mobile phone, you talk to China from Europe without cables, how does that work?" Just frequencies and wavelengths! Nature has own system of frequencies and wavelengths. When you put a specific preparation in the soil, it is connected to a specific process. Then comes understanding that agriculture should be much more liberated than it is now.

Joly stresses that biodynamic approach is first of all about quality farming. It brings results for all types of agricultural products. During last Vinexpo Joly organized a blind tasting of conventional and biodynamic vegetables, milk and other products. He recently visited Cuba where he explained biodynamic principles for growing tobacco. Thus he tries to bring the message that biodynamics in agriculture works more effectively than other methods.

- When you move to the energetic world, you don’t ask how the sun comes to the earth. It doesn’t have ten thousand workers, trucks and shovels. It comes under a form of frequency. It is also true about other planets. Each planet is sending specific frequencies. This knowledge is probably the most advanced in Russia. Biodynamics is saying we use specific frequencies and increase their power to get better realization of fruit. People all over the world are moving to biodynamics not for philosophical reasons, but because their wine gets better.

Disease as such does not exist in a plant, it’s just a lack of life forces. The more you are in good condition, the less you get disease. In biodynamics we restore life forces therefore we have less disease and a better product.

In organic farming the same principles are applied at a lower level. There is understanding that nature is very sophisticated. People don’t interfere with natural processes, don’t use molecules of synthesis, don’t work with artificial fertilizers.

- The knowledge of plants has almost totally disappeared. I’m treating my vines with maybe ten plants, and it is not that difficult. I’m thinking of running week-long seminars in different countries on the subject of plants. It doesn’t take long to understand the way plants work.

Today the industry is very smart. People tell winegrowers, "You should use weed killers, it is very convenient". But with a weed killer you kill living agents of the soil. A plant cannot feed itself without microorganisms. How can I eat if my hands are taken to my back? The first years are very positive because during that period microorganisms die and turn into compost. Then the roots cannot feed themselves on the soil, so the terroir effect is gone. So winegrowers resort to chemical fertilizers, but their action is the action of salt. If you take a teaspoon of salt, you feel thirsty. When you put a chemical fertilizer you are forcing water in the plant. If you have too much water in the plant, you have mushroom disease, so you have cryptogrammic disease like mildew and oidium. Treat this new disease people have been inventing fabulous, but extremely dangerous technology. New chemical treatments are called systemic. It means that they are taken in the sap, they go inside the plant. Before the action was external, it was washed out by rain. Today the chemical is taken inside the vine and inside the grape.

Another new technology manipulates the taste of wine. If I want Coulee de Serrant to have a taste of strawberry, I can do it. If I want Montrachet to have a taste of banana, I can do it, too. In the 90s there was a boom because all wines had a very good taste. Today consumers are confused. What was thought to be unique to a specific chateau can suddenly be found in a cheap Chilean or South African wine. This is why now biodynamics is coming forth. I’m not saying that our wines taste better (for me the comparisons better-worse have no sense), but they are original. I am not interested in wine made by a smart winemaker. I want the wine where I find the personality of the soil.

Nicolas Joly turned to biodynamics in 1980s. Having abandoned a career in the financial sector, he started to cultivate his vineyard by conventional methods until he came across a book written by Rudolf Steiner, founder of biodynamic theory. Since then Joly accepts no other ways of treating his soils.

- When I started, I didn’t know who Rudolf Steiner was. He was dead and unknown. I read his book and I started to make preparations. I made enormous mistakes, and it was only a year after that I realized there were other estates practicing biodynamics. There were four or five of them. Honestly, in the first ten years I didn’t understand much. Then things became clearer. Since 1995, and especially in the last 6 years I’ve been openly talking about biodynamics. Energetic world has not been completely studied. It is a very complex system, but beyond the energetic aspect your have social, medical, farming, teaching systems. Possibilities are huge!

- Our group is extremely strict. We only take people who are prepared to be legally committed to the consumer. We have an annual tasting committee where we may exclude up to two thirds of new applications. We have tastings in different countries, our schedule is full for the next two years. And this is only the start.

Of course, producers who capitalize on high yields and uniform taste, are not happy with our movement. We cannot destroy that market, but at least the consumer has a choice between two opposite directions. Some prefer untrue, easy taste. Others realize that they want to drink original wine. Our niche is small, but it has its supporters and is set to be growing.