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Chapter Eight: Big Biodynamics
- Oregon State University Press
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109 chapter eight Big Biodynamics Here is a parable of the garden which the righteous are promised: In it are rivers of wine, a joy to those who drink. —The Koran, 47:15 You might recall the James Bond film franchise back in its kookier days, when there was a beloved recurring character called “Q.” A mad scientist-cum-engineer extraordinaire, Q developed spying devices that allowed Bond to extricate himself from the hairiest situations with the touch of a button. Thanks to Q’s inventions, the old Bond—unlike today’s brawny, brooding Daniel Craig—was Inspector Gadget, plus panache. Q’s brilliance was in his ability to repurpose everyday objects such as pens, cameras, and cars. He had the vision to see how these items might serve a higher goal, and the know-how to transform them. On most farms, there’s no place for a well-groomed British inventor in a crisp lab coat. But there is most certainly a Q figure at Montinore Estate, the second-largest biodynamic vineyard in the state of Oregon (at 250 acres of vines, it’s slightly smaller than Momtazi Vineyard, but unlike Momtazi, it turns all of its own fruit into estate wine): Don Huggett, a gruff, grizzled mechanic with large, chapped hands. Huggett grew up poor, learning how to make do with what was available. His father was a mechanic, and very handy, and he taught his son how to tinker. By the time he was sixteen, Don had installed Cadillac running gear in a ’57 Chevy pickup, creating with his own hands the smoothest and yet most macho ride a teenage boy could ever hope for. Before coming to Oregon, Don owned transmission shops in Fort Collins, Colorado, and Laramie, Wyoming. When he landed at Montinore Estate in Forest Grove on July 5, 1989, Don Huggett settled in for a quiet career of maintaining farm equipment. But then, in 2005, things changed. A man named Rudy Marchesi bought Montinore and began to convert the estate to biodynamics. And that’s when Huggett, an ordinary mechanic, transformed himself into an extraordinary inventor. Just call him Don Q. voodoo vintners 110 It all started with the tractor attachment for Block Seven, the small triangular section of pinot noir vines planted closest to the winery. With no herbicides allowed on a biodynamic farm, weeds are tilled mechanically at Montinore. But Block Seven is planted like an old vineyard in Burgundy, with low-trellised vines in tightly spaced rows that stand only five feet apart. No standard tractor cultivator attachment fits between five-foot rows. So Don Huggett fitted the bottom of a thirty-gallon drum with a motorbike shock suspension, attaching a lawn-mower deck bearing and dethatcher springs as cutter tines. The result is what he calls “my little turny thing”: a hydraulically powered weed eater mounted on a three-point hitch. A gearhead might call this thing a “Frankenrig”—a bunch of junk welded together—but to the staff at Montinore, it represents hours of saved labor. Another Huggett invention, the “Frodge,” is an improbable fusion of the Big Three: a 1975 Dodge motor home, a 1979 Ford van, and the bumper of 1989 Chevy pickup. Equipped with shower, handwashing sink, eye-washing station, trash and recycling bins, and a covered wagon, it provides escape from the elements plus a few extras for safety and comfort for laborers as they’re out working the remote corners of the large estate. Then there’s the “Chaos Vortex,” possibly Huggett’s greatest achievement. With 250 acres under vine at Montinore, hand-stirring the biodynamic preps was not an option. But Montinore operates on a tight budget, so paying thousands of dollars for a custombuilt stirring machine or sculpture-like flow form wasn’t an option, either. It was up to Don Huggett to invent a machine to perform the laborious task. But there was a large stumbling block: in biodynamics, electricity is not considered to be supportive of the life process. Huggett didn’t ask why the hell he couldn’t just set up a straightforward KitchenAid mixer-type device; or, frankly, why this bizarre stirring ritual had to be practiced at all. “Although I don’t agree with everything he does,” Huggett says circumspectly about his boss, “I just do what he tells me to do. Because he writes the paycheck.” So Huggett shrugged, thought about it, and devised an elegant solution to what appeared to be a ridiculous problem...