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Integrated Agriculture Thinking at Littorai Wines
Do you associate organic and biodynamic viticulture with manure filled cow horns, voodoo, and musty smelling wines? Better think again, some of the top wineries around the world have embraced these approaches. Not because they believe in voodoo, because they have tested the approach and liked the results.

A great way to dig deeper into biodynamics is to find a tour at a vineyard practicing these techniques. By all accounts, Ted Lemon at Littorai Wines is producing highly regarded, elegant wines in Sonoma and Anderson Valley. A visit to the winery can give you a personal view of what these techniques look like in practice. It doesn’t look that much different from other wineries you have visited until you look a little closer.

The Littorai winery looks over the Pivot vineyard, the home estate vineyard. The property is 30 acres, with just 3 acres planted to vine with the remainder intentionally left as meadow and forest.

Alternatives to Conventional Farming
Ted came to alternative approaches after practicing conventional farming back in the 1990’s.  Today, all the properties owned or leased by Littorai are managed to at least an organic standard.  The estate vineyards are managed to an approach which, while not certified, is closely aligned with organic and biodynamic methods.

Biodynamic Farming Basic Principles
Biodynamics starts with organic farming, where the goal is soil health. This means no artificial fertilizers, herbicides or insecticides. Biodynamics goes further, with a goal of self-sustaining health of the entire farm. The ideal model is that of the forest, with a balance of plant and animal life. This approach encourages mixed use in every aspect of the farm, quite different from the typical monoculture of most of today’s typical farms and vineyards. The property at the Littorai winery totals 30 acres, with 3 acres planted to grapes. The remainder is left to meadow and forest. They have animals on the farm and encourage beneficial wildlife as well.

Activities are completed according to the phase of the moon. While this seems odd to our modern brains, farmers have used moon phases to guide operations for centuries, until the start of modern chemical based agriculture. Think: Farmer’s Almanac.

Key Things You’ll See

• Compost piles
• Bird houses, bat houses
• Livestock such as chickens, sheep, goats, cattle
• Herb gardens with a variety of plants
• Biodynamic preparations at various times of the year
• Awareness and use of the moon’s phase to guide farming (and cellar) activities.

If you’re interested in learning more, there’s lots of good information available on the Demeter Association website here with useful faq’s here. Now, take a visual tour of Biodynamics in practice at Littorai. Make sure you continue reading after the tour! (click on any photo for a full size slide show, hit “escape” to return)

The Pivot vineyard sits on 30 acres, with 27 acres of meadow and forest, and 3 acres of grapes.

Start your tour in the gardens, Valerian and Yarrow for biodynamic preparations, rosemary to attract bees, and a variety of other plants to attract birds and beneficial insects.

Valerian flowers for biodynamic preparations

After harvest, the vines are preparing to go dormant over the winter.

If you look closely, you’ll see a few grapes left which weren’t ripe at harvest

I asked about the irrigation lines. Irrigation is allowed under biodynamics. At Littorai, irrigation is used very sparingly and only when absolutely necessary. Example, the vines benefit from some water after the harvest.

Our guide, Casey, explained the importance of compost. Different from typical compost where a high temperature is required to kill all the bugs, Biodynamic compost is managed to avoid excessive heat. Think of it as fermentation!

Part of the self-sustaining farm, they grow their own hay for the compost piles. Also note the chickens.

Doesn’t look like much, but the barn is so important. Before you go inside, notice the bat houses mounted up high.

There are multiple preparations for various purposes. Many are herbal based, so this is where they collect, dry, prep and store the materials.

Many of the preparations are prepared as “teas” to guide the advancement of the compost.

Herbs and flowers are dried here in the gentle warmth

Horsetail

Chamomile

Oak Bark

Dandelion – hey, they’re useful for something!

Yarrow

Dried Valerian flowers

Constant work in the barn

These preparations all that that clean, loamy smell of fresh compost

Typically, the preparations are made as biodynamic “teas” which are then applied to the vines, the compost pile or the earth below the vines.

Disappointed that you didn’t see any manure filled cowhorns? Stay tuned for a coming post. Plenty of poop there!

Not taken at Littorai, I had more biodynamics 101 at the Wine Bloggers Conference. Post coming soon!

Organic & Biodynamic Wine Tasting

Littorai looks like many wineries, although not all are this spotlessly clean! All the wines ferment by native yeast and malolactic fermentation is allowed on both whites and reds.

For the Chardonnays, the free run juice goes to barrel, the press wine goes into stainless. Only 20% new oak. The wines spend 16 months in barrel.

Very pretty and elegant, the Chardonnays are ready to drink now!

My favorite kind of tasting room – nothing fancy, surrounded by winery equipment

The destem vs. whole cluster decision is made on a vintage by vintage basis. Same with punchdowns and pumpovers, determined based on what the wine would benefit from. I was struck by the Savoy.

A beautiful spot for tasting, my fellow tour attendees were from Japan.

Out into the warm (by Minnesota standards) November sun.

See For Yourself
You can see the estate yourself, Littorai hosts a variety of tours and tastings. The extensive tour pictured here is the Goldridge Estate Tour and Tasting. The current fee is $60, and includes the complete tour you see here, plus a nice tasting of Littorai Chardonnay and Pinot Noir wines. When you visit Sonoma, make an appointment and try the wines!