Profile: Nicolas Joly

NICOLAS
JOLY •
Winemaker-Viticulturalist-Educator •
Savennières, Loire, France

The Loire Valley, arguably
France’s most exciting wine region, produces underrated and
undervalued wines and is home to oenological rebels who
thrive on experimenting and evolving techniques, and who
regularly and convincingly break France’s iron rules of
viticulture and winemaking. Though the Loire’s specialty
white grape, Chenin Blanc, is especially delicious and often
a steal, few Californian wineries bother making it (Dry
Creek, Chalone, Chappellet notably excepted). Perhaps the
Loire’s most controversial figure is Nicolas Joly, who
follows biodynamics with a fervor matched by few, even among
his passionate countrymen. Joly’s golden mean of biodynamic
Chenin Blanc, Coulee de Serrant, has its own Appellation
Controlee within Savennieres, has been grown by Cistercian
monks since 113O, and ranks as ‘hot property’ among
recherche winelovers and cognoscenti. The second edition of
Joly’s back-to-the-roots primer on natural winemaking, Wine
From Sky and Earth (acresusa.com, 8OO.355.5313) was just
released; it may well be the Bible of biodynamics. Joly
bases his holistic theories on precepts put forth by
anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner, also known as the Waldorf
Schools founder. Prominent biodynamic practitioners include
many converted colleagues in Alsace (Zind-Humbrecht, Marcel
Deiss), Burgundy (Lafon, Leflaive, Bize-Leroy), Rhone
(Chapoutier) and Loire (Huet), and increasing advocates
elsewhere. Having said, “Philosophy and practice must always
go hand in hand,” Joly today lectures and consults in
vineyards worldwide.

OFF to
RUSSIA I didn’t
want to travel with the banking, so I returned to the earth:
I took over running my family’s historic vineyard in 1977.
But now I’m traveling again! I’m going to see how people
tend their local vines as well as investigate the making of
amphorae [clay wine storage vessels]. Each cepage is
different; you don’t look for polar bears in Africa! In
Russia today, vineyards are going private, and local farmers
cannot afford to pay what they ask. I’m looking into the
share system, to be sure these farms will be biodynamic and
help the farmers preserve their local varietals! It’s done
already for wheat, and they raise some rare varieties of
wheat. Can it be done for vines as well? We’ll see! I’m just
back from Georgia (Russia) and have discovered some fabulous
local varieties.

BIODYNAMICS
DEFINED In
biodynamics, we connect the vine to the frequencies it needs
– like tuning a radio, we tune the plant to the frequencies
that bring it life. Organics permits nature to do its job;
biodynamics permits nature to do its job better. It is very
simple.

RE-FORGING
OLD LINKS Wine is
made of climate and soil. If you move away from that
physical reality to a complex energy system (like the sun
shining), disease needs to link itself to the life system.
Biodynamics serve to reconnect the plant to that tangible
system. You may have lower yields, but the microclimate
benefits and brings forth the true taste of the
grape.

ARMIES
of DESTRUCTION When
you see diseases on the plant, you have to fight them. The
truth is that when you treat diseases with chemicals, you
further harm the vines. Let’s see what the disease is linked
to and take away that weakness. Look at diseases as if they
were soldiers. They don’t fight all year long, but once in a
while go forth. Viruses are usually most dangerous when they
find a weak thing without force or energy they can overcome.
Disease can remove weakness. Root can never feed itself.
Weed-killers prevent vines from linking themselves to the
soil.

BIG BAD
CHEMISTRY If an
auto dealer advises you to add an accessory on your car, but
you find that the secondary effects are increased road
danger and carbon monoxide build-up, you can take him to
court. So now we find that the chemical companies lied to us
about the efficacy of pesticides and herbicides.

TEA for
VINES Salt-based
fertilizers are poisonous to the vine as they affect its
balance. Instead, we rebuild the soil’s strength and realign
the vine by using tiny quantities of natural preparations of
nettle, dandelion and chamomile. These herbs are also good
for people and are prepared with a very strict protocol: we
place a few grams into a small compost for a few weeks. We
then quick-stirring the mix for an hour in 2OO liters of
water – a process called “dynamization” – and spread it on
the soil. This process engenders specific microbial life; it
is what the plant needs to be healthy. We counteract their
negative effects with teas made from nettle, dandelion and
chamomilee. They also work for the human body, since
chemical pills are not as healthy as homeopathic and natural
herb treatments. Each preparation brings a process which the
vine needs for health: camomile = calcium, yarrow = potash,
nettle = iron, dandelion = silica, valerian =
phosphorus.

NEW
MUSIC As in music,
if you extract one note from a melody, you diminish it.
These teas help the vine plant move from one direction to
another via acoustics through the solar system to the
leaves. Thus we capture the essence of the microclimate and
of the AOC (appellation d’origine controlee) that defines
specific soil and climate. So the vine expresses a little
more the place where it is growing. I’m playing another song
on diseases and vines. I show young people that you don’t
have to know about the mechanics of breathing to sing; it’s
like that for farming, too. They know chemistry but not
acoustics. What’s important is to attune the soil to what is
above – plants! sun! solar system!

TERROIR
= SOIL + CLIMATE
Terroir is composed of soil and climate. Climate is made of
humidity, light and heat, three highly variable factors that
affect the life of the soil that the roots capture. Rain may
be short or long, with or without heat (more or less fog).
You may have a lot of light with little heat or the reverse.
Keep in mind that when the Greeks divined seven gods of the
wind, from the weakest to the strongest, they were referring
to specific forces or processes. There is much to study in
the ancient knowledge that is completely misunderstood
today.

HARMONIOUS
FIELDS Nature does
not like monoculture. But people seem to. Nature doesn’t
like to get bored either! Mixing vines with peaches or
garlic is fine! I have fields around the vines that I could
plant but do not choose to; instead there are fields of
cows, horses and sheep, and some woods. Winemakers must
understand their soil before the grapes, not the reverse.
Timing is everything! When the sun weakens a little in
winter, and the leaves fall, we see a sort of death coming.
Autumn is a busy season, where the farmers can help the
vines ‘die a little death’ by choosing the precise natural
fertilizers.

IN the
CELLAR The more you
help the vine to do its job – by means of a living soil,
proper vine selection and avoiding poisonous treatments –
the more harmony there is. If the wine catches this harmony
well, you have nothing to do in the cellar: potentially it
is all there. This is why I call my self a nature assistant
and not a wine maker.

NATURAL
YEASTS I choose to
keep the natural yeasts, rather than inoculating with yeast
cultures. Re-yeasting is absurd. Natural yeast is marked by
all the subtleties of the year. If you have been dumb enough
to kill your yeast you have lost something from that
year.

THAT
DEEP BURNISHED GOLD
The reason that even my young Chenin Blancs have that deep
gold color is harvesting late to encourage the positive
botrytis – up to 3O% in some vineyards. Once farming is
good, the question becomes, ‘When do I cut my grapes?’ When
you see light yellow green, the vine will have fruit but
lack minerality. You must lose 2O% of the juice by waiting
until the grapes approach being dry raisins. This waiting is
effective only if your farming is sane. Grapes may not rot,
but the maturation process achieves increased
minerality.

NEW
EXPERIMENTS I’m
taking away vines I planted from seed: after six years,
they’re still lacking forces to grow. I let sheep run
between the vines from now until spring; their manure is
excellent. I’m fighting disease with new teas. When the sun
is harsh I try seaweed and fucus. My advice on the West
Coast is to reduce the sun’s effects with very small doses
of aloe vera. [High in iodine and used in cosmetics and
health products, these brown mossy Mediterranean seaweeds
were used by Greeks and Romans for fodder and herbal
medicines.]

ZODIAC
EFFECTS [German
theorist] Maria Thun’s experiments 5O years ago show
that zodiac signs affect parts of the vine: root (Capricorn,
Virgo, Taurus); leaves (Pisces, Scorpio, Cancer); flower
(Aquarius, Libra, Gemini); or fruit (Sagittarius, Leo,
Aries). By working or scratching a soil when the moon is in
front of one of these 4 tendencies, you increase the
receptivity for the soil’s micro-organisms to these forces.
For example, when you open your shutters you receive more
outside weather. But when soil micro-organisms have been
killed by herbicides or chemical fertilizers, forget
it.

READING
the ANCIENTS
Steiner has already digested the ancient writers, tuning
them to our time. Botanist Wilhelm Pelikan’s Medicinal
Plants is an important volume.

LAST
WRITINGS The new
edition of Wine From Sky and Earth adds 3O important pages.
There’s also a new book, available in English in 2OO7, that
attempts to explain to consumers what is “real wine”, wine
that has received no ‘cosmetics’ or artificial taste and is
fully expressive of the place where the vine grew. Also,
what system provides life to earth and how to use it in
farming.