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120 chapter nine The Glam Factor “Pinot noir vines, if you don’t trellis them, will fall on the ground. These vines are really terrestrial. They’re linked to the earth, but we are helping them to reach to the skies and their etheric forces. And at their last gasp for the year, they offer up this beautiful fruit. And each grape is created to encapsulate this little tiny seed encoded with the vine’s entire genetic DNA. “Look at a vine: it’s green and brown—earth colors, not these glorious sunset colors like you see in flowers. But these beautifully colored grapes, they’re almost like the perfect transition between the terrestrial and the heavenly. We’re trying to capture that transition or that joining point. As winemakers, we’re trying to encapsulate that year of sunlight and of water—of both forces working on this one plant. And then transmute them through this alchemical process of fermentation and put them in this bottle. ... “No other consumable thing has that same distillation of heaven and earth.” —Sam Tannahill, director of viticulture and winemaking for the wineries A to Z, Rex Hill, and Francis-Tannahill Oh, to be Sting and Trudie Styler! To be a rock star and an actress/ producer/yogi! To have a gaggle of children and a private plane and a staff of domestic assistants and spiritual advisors and seven homes! And for one of those homes to be a nearly one-thousandacre estate in Tuscany, a working farm under the watchful eye of superstar biodynamic consultant Alan York, producing extra-virgin olive oil, chestnut and acacia honey, jams, fruit, vegetables, and salami and—best of all—biodynamic Chianti! Oh, to be Danielle Andrus Montalieu, the platinum-blonde daughter of the Olympic skier who founded Napa Valley’s storied Pine Ridge winery and the Willamette Valley’s luxury label, Archery Summit! Oh, to be sitting at a patio table by her pool, overlooking her picturesque and biodynamically farmed Domaine Danielle Laurent vineyard and Soléna winery and Grand Cru Estates! The Glam Factor 121 And oh, to be Paul and Kendall Bergström de Lancellotti! He, a tan former globe-trotting surfer with a name worthy of an Arthurian knight, and she, a blonde former pro snowboarder and member of the renowned Bergström winemaking family! They, the founding partners of the Inn at Red Hills and Farm to Fork restaurant in Dundee! They, who live on a biodynamic gentleman’s farm and produce $65 bottles of de Lancellotti biodynamic pinot noir that the critics go gaga for! Oh, to be Mike Etzel, brother-in-law and business partner of the world’s most powerful wine critic, the great Robert Parker! And to be able to charge $90 for a bottle of one’s outrageously delicious and aptly titled biodynamically farmed Beaux Frères wines! And, oh, to be James Frey, with his Superman looks and sleek new winery outfitted with a personal art gallery! And to own two vineyards brimming with some of the best dry-farmed, biodynamic fruit in the Willamette Valley, and to have one’s $75 pinots getting 90-plus scores from Parker, straight out of the gate! Oh, to be blessed with good genes, good fortune, a good work ethic, and good credit, because if you have these four things, perhaps you, too, can make biodynamic wine! It is tempting to deem the wealthy wineries that have taken a shine to BD as merely a group of beautiful people dabbling in something fashionable. One might harbor momentary visions of Marie Antoinette, costumed as a shepherdess, play-milking docile cows on her fanciful farm, the “Hameau de la Reine,” that rustic pseudohamlet on the grounds of the Petit Trianon at Versailles—in tune with her own ersatz notion of nature but completely out of touch with the ways of the world. It is tempting, but it is wrong. Because what unites the high-end biodynamic wineries is not their faddishness, but rather their pursuit of perfection. Mike Etzel, for example, would laugh if one were to accuse him of being one of the beautiful people. His skin has the leathery quality of someone who started his career on a Maryland dairy farm and continues to spend most of his time outside, on a tractor. There is an impishness to his speech that makes much of what he says sound as though it were said in jest. But tell Etzel that his fellow...

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