Benzinger is a biodynamic vineyard. There's have a super informative self-guided tour along a outdoor trail that provides detailed information about the biodynamic growing process.
I could have spent a full hour there and I thought it alone was worth the visit. If I had read everything in detail, I probably could have started my own damn vineyard.
Basically biodynamic farming is the highest form of organic farming and goes beyond eliminating chemical inputs and strives to have a closed farming system.
Meaning that the fertilizer that they use consists of harvested crap from the llama and chickens that walk around their fields. They stick the crap in cow horns and bury them in the ground.
Meaning that instead of pesticides, they use a variety of flowering plants along the vineyards to attract good bugs to eat the bad bugs.
Meaning that they have houses for all sorts of flying critters to eat rodents and insects.
They're hard core.
The wines are good too.
I got the reserve tasting ($15 for 7 wines) and Mr. Insomniac got the basic tasting ($10 for 5 wines).
They were wonderful... It was right about here when I wished for the hundredth time that I lived within driving distance of wine country. I was so envious of all the NoCalers picking up large quantities of wine, without a care of how to cram it into a suitcase without going over maximum weight allotments. *sigh*.
Like Cakebread, for all the wines they produce, Benzinger only sells a few in retail stores. Why bother with the distribution fees when they can sell directly to visitors and folks in their wine clubs? *sigh*
Boo.
1 comment:
I'm fascinated by the "Bat Box." Is a bat supposed to get in there and eat bugs? I'm picturing a bat lifting the hinged lid to get inside to grab a snack....
I'm far too lazy to be a biodynamic farmer, heh.
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