2019 Vintage Summary: Tranquility and Transformation

Things may have seemed simple in 2019, but they were not.

After the rains of 2018, the 2019 vintage brought welcomed change. Unusually dry weather that started in mid-July helped make the harvest, at first blush, delightfully simple. The vines politely stopped growing at veraison, focusing their energy on ripening the fruit. The vineyard team was, well, in the vineyard, the work progressing quickly and efficiently. Picking, sorting, and processing seemed almost effortless. The wines made themselves.

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Club events were equally agreeable. The dry ground meant we could use the new parking area without preparing for towing duty. Dodon ‘til Dusk wasn’t canceled for rain, and Alley and her mostly new service team did a remarkable job learning their roles, revising procedures to enhance the DtD experience, and making all of us feel at home.

But underlying the triumphs were hidden challenges. The 2018 growing season - with its heavy precipitation, saturated soil, early defoliation, and poor nutrient storage - had lingering effects. In 2019, canes, buds, and the vineyard floor still contained high levels of residual fungal pathogens. Average low temperatures were higher than normal, limiting the number of “chill hours” (the number of hours the vines are exposed to temperatures between 32 degrees and 45 degrees F) that are required to break dormancy. The consequences were bud failure, excessive shatter (when the new seeds are not fertilized), and isolated bunch rot in the period before harvest, despite the near-perfect weather.

Still, the vintage proved exceptional. Although yields were low, about 20% less than usual, the quality of the harvested fruit was outstanding. The wines are continuing their annual trend toward greater depth and complexity, consistent with the increasing age of the vines. These characteristics were enhanced by long maceration times, allowing us to extract the full range of flavors. The Sauvignon Blanc and Rosé will soon be bottled; we are thrilled with them.

Lessons Going Forward

For the past year and a half, we’ve focused on understanding why 2018 was so damaging and on how we can be better prepared for the future. Our path to greater resilience involves two courses of action. First, we need to become more flexible in our harvest and winemaking strategies, such as when to pick early and make Rosé, when to alter our usual extraction processes, and what to do when we get caught with less than perfect fruit.  We now have written protocols with criteria for their use for each of these situations.

We are also making fundamental changes to our vineyard practices. Because of my background in medicine and immunology, as I read more about the underlying science, the central concepts have emerged with clarity. While our farming has always been at the forefront of sustainability, 2019 is the year we hastened the pace of Dodon’s ecological approach to farming.

Throughout the vintage, we invested heavily in a set of practices that focus on improving soil, enhancing biodiversity and ecosystem services, and enriching the health, vitality, and resilience of the plants. Many of the techniques that we’ve adopted are the natural extension of our past effort to mimic natural processes, but our new focus centers primarily on soil and soil biology.

Soil with structural integrity, a diverse microbiome, and high levels of organic matter carries out many vital functions. It provides essential support for plants, protects against both drought and flood, removes environmental toxins, and improves water quality. Particularly important in today’s world, soil stores large quantities of carbon – more than twice the amount found in the atmosphere. Putting more carbon in soil will play a crucial role in addressing the underlying cause of climate change.

Healthy soil is the result of the biological interaction between plants and microbes. Just like the microvilli of the human intestine, roots are the mechanism that plants use to take in nutrients. As in humans, a balanced diet is essential for plant health. The best diets come from rich topsoil with good nutrient and water holding capacity, characteristics that allow the plants to produce complex phytochemicals that improve their structural integrity and strength, promote disease resistance, and enhance flavor.

Microbes – protozoa, fungus, bacteria, and archea – play several crucial roles in healthy soil. First, they decompose organic matter and secrete organic acids that breakdown rocks, releasing nitrogen, phosphorous, sulfur, and other nutrients that can be absorbed by plants, and they enhance water regulation by producing glycoproteins that improve soil aggregates.

Roberto and Tom construct a Johnson-Su bioreactor, a type of static, aerobic composter.

Second, beneficial microbes compete with pathogens for nutrients, secrete antimicrobial compounds and lytic enzymes that inhibit pathogen growth, and boost plant systemic host defense by stimulating production of phytochemicals. The result is an environment known as disease-suppressive soil that protects plants from pathogens.

The devil, of course, is in the details. There isn’t a textbook on ecological vineyard systems that translates these concepts into methods to create healthy soil, and only a few peers in the industry have taken this approach. The closest techniques are those used in biodynamics, but the supporting science for this very specific set of practices isn’t yet well-developed. As a result, we looked instead to other agricultural, natural, and scientific systems – everything from forestry to paleopedology (the study of soils from past geological eras) – and to our own property, where native grape vines live and thrive in the woods, not the pastures.

Turnips have a deep taproot that breaks up compaction.

Reasoning that grape vines would likely be healthiest in a forest-like setting supported by nutrients and microbes that are common in that ecosystem, we decided to emphasize growth of diverse fungal species that prefer woody food sources. Our compost program now emphasizes wood chips, and we’ve constructed a static, aerobic composter inoculated with soil from the woods just outside the vineyard. We hope that this compost will contain native mycorrhizal fungus species that will interact with the vines to produces better soil, healthier plants, and better fruit.

Because different plants provide diverse nutrients to soil microbes, we’re also working to enhance plant diversity within the vineyard. One method is to use highly heterogeneous cover crops. Our mix this year included eleven different species of grasses and forbs. A custom-made roller crimper has helped as well. When perennial grasses are mowed, hormonal signals stimulate regrowth. In contrast, crimping tall grasses terminates their growth and allows other plant species to flourish. Crimping also provides a mulch layer, cooling the soil to provide a better environment for fungal growth.

Crimping enhances plant diversity and cools soil.

Will these methods work? The conventional wisdom that vines need to struggle to produce the best wine gives pause to many of our colleagues, but it does not convince me. It’s true that overly vigorous vines with abundant foliage produce wines that lack structure and taste “green” from too many methoxypyrazines. The question is whether this vigor is produced by healthy soil with high levels of organic matter, or whether it is more likely to occur in unhealthy soil exposed to excess mineral nitrogen and phosphorous from fertilization, tillage, or excess rain.

Recent research from Germany suggests that vines raised in healthy, microbially active soils have smaller shoots, lower pruning weights, and fewer leaf layers, all signs of reduced vigor, as compared to conventionally grown grapevines. Perhaps in this context, “struggling” refers to the appearance of small, contained vines focused on reproduction and not vines struggling to feed a depleted microbiome by producing excess foliage.

Our practices are supported by research published over the past decade in scientific journals like Cell, Science, and Nature. They are based on cutting edge research and represent a significant departure from standard viticulture. After 30 years away from the lab, it’s fun to again read journals that formed the foundation of my scientific career.

But the reality is that the methods we are adopting are not new at all. Nature had a pretty good system before Thomas Jefferson invented the moldboard plow, Robert Koch developed germ theory, and Norman Borlaug initiated the green revolution. While these innovations resulted in robust increases in food production and saved billions of lives, they are also associated with degraded soil, reductions in nutrient density, and increasing input intensity. By looking to the past, new science that reintegrates ecology into the toolbox may move agriculture into a safer, more resilient, and healthful future.

We do not yet know which specific practices will be the most effective in the vineyard, but it would be folly to keep doing the same things as in the past. We are heartened by the support of our wine club members and a few leaders of the wine industry. It is indeed both exciting and daunting to be redirecting our growing strategies, and we welcome your feedback.

The final story of 2019 vintage is thus a tale of two vintages. The first – simple, unchallenging, straightforward – reminds me of an Ignaz Pleyel flute concerto, extraordinarily popular during Pleyel’s lifetime but which have become obscure with time. The second vintage - more scientifically and intellectually demanding - is reminiscent of Mozart’s Flute Concerto No. 1 in G major. Composed shortly after he had been dismissed from the Viennese court, this concerto represents the rebellious defiance of defeat that eventually thrust Mozart to the pinnacle of classical music.

The challenges of the 2018 vintage proved to us that simply sustaining the status quo would not be enough to withstand the consequences of the rising temperatures and extreme weather events that scientists predict for the future. Rather, we are convinced that restoring a functional ecosystem represents the best path forward in terms of wine quality, as well as environmental stewardship. Stay tuned as 2020 unfolds, and we learn more.

In praise of farmworkers (and all food workers)

As I reflect from the comfort of an air-conditioned office, the vineyard team is hedging for the third time this year. Usually, we only hedge twice, but the excess foliage that resulted from last year’s heavy rainfall is creating too much shade. The temperature will soon be 90 degrees Fahrenheit for the 27th time this season. The high humidity, now 97% according to the weather station, means that neither the vines nor those who tend them get much benefit from evaporative cooling.

The Dodon vineyard team stacks lugs of Chardonnay for transport to the winery for pressing.

Such moments of contemplation leave me eternally grateful for our vineyard team. They are dedicated to the hard work and perspiration that enhances the environment and produces the best wine. And they are part of a larger group of food and agricultural professionals who feed the nation. We owe them a great deal.

It takes considerable effort by many people in a complex system to get food on your table. Think for a moment about where your next meal will come from. If your answer is the supermarket, you’ve missed something.

Farm workers till soil, plant seeds, apply soil amendments, weed and water, raise honeybees, mow fields, feed animals and remove their waste, milk, gather eggs, pick vegetables and fruit, and clean equipment.

If your meal includes meat, meat packers slaughter, butcher, and wrap. Throughout the food system, a complex network of packers, forklift operators, and truck drivers distribute food from farm to market. Food service workers purchase ingredients; set tables; prepare, cook, plate, and serve meals; bus plates; and wash dishes and put them away.

Collectively, food workers make up 9% of the American workforce. These are people who should have the training and experience to carry out their function efficiently and effectively and to ensure that food is safely delivered to your table. And they should be able to advance in their careers, support their families, and pursue their interests.

And yet, despite the importance of the work that they perform, food workers at every level of the system are, as often as not, inadequately paid, treated, and trained to perform their jobs effectively. Farm work ranks among the 25 lowest paid occupations in America. Food service occupations - cooks, servers, bus people, and dishwashers – are in the bottom 10. And because these workers are often women and immigrants with fewer legal protections than other workers, they are frequently abused and exploited.

In his powerful book Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser tells the story of the erosion of meat packing as an occupation. According to Schlosser, meat packers in 1970 were considered skilled workers who enjoyed middle class wages and long-term employment. Now, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, meat packing has become the most dangerous occupation in America, with largely unskilled workers using hand-held knives to process meat at rates twice those of other countries.

Moreover, surveys find that more than a third of all women in the food service sector, especially those making minimum wage (currently $3.63 per hour for tipped workers in Maryland), have experienced some form of unwanted sexual harassment, making this the single largest source of sexual harassment claims reported to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The current system may keep food prices low, but I wonder about its true costs. Given the abuse, low wages, and degree of manual labor, Enlightenment Now author Steven Pinker wonders why anyone would want to be a farm worker, suggesting that vertical farming and synthetic food offer better alternatives. (There may even be synthetic wine in the future.)

Technology-based solutions may have a role in the future of our food system, but whether food is grown in soil, laboratories, or factories, its increasing complexity will require skilled workers. These are, after all, the people who feed us. Much as we should value the work of teachers, nurses, and public safety officers, we should appreciate the passion, dedication, knowledge, and ownership that farm and other food workers bring to their jobs.

Tom teaches the team how to scout for fungal disease.

Education is one way to recognize the skilled nature of food work. For example, while most small farms make significant effort to train their workers, plentiful off-farm opportunities for basic training in soil science, horticulture and plant pathology, entomology, pesticide safety and stewardship, mechanics, and other subjects would both acknowledge the importance of workers and enhance their value.

Maryland’s seventeen community colleges have the infrastructure to provide this education, but of these, only Chesapeake College in Wye Mills, offers an agriculture track. Paid apprenticeships, such as those supported by the Department of Labor, also offer important opportunities for training. Unfortunately, these are currently ill-defined, making them difficult for farmers to access.

The Governor’s Workforce Development Board, along with its twelve local partners, has the responsibility to assess workforce needs in the state and to create policies and programs to address them. Agriculture should become a priority for the Board.

As the climate warms, farm worker training and education will likely pay larger, societal dividends. When the appropriate methods are used, agriculture represents an important way to sequester carbon and address climate change. Skilled, educated workers will implement these methods and adapt them to local conditions more effectively than those that aren’t adequately trained.

In addition to technical training, farm and food work, like many other skilled occupations, also requires soft skills, such careful observation, attention to detail, critical thinking, and problem-solving, activities that are best done when workers are close to the product and those who consume it. And the workers deserve ongoing career pathways so that these are not seen as “dead-end” jobs to be avoided when, like now, alternatives are plentiful.

And simply recognizing the contributions of workers throughout the food system is the most important way we have to say thanks for a job well-done.

America's Farmers Can Fight Climate Change

The following post was published in the Baltimore Sun on May 24, 2019

Maryland farmers are confronting the challenges of changing weather patterns that are the result of carbon pollution and warmer temperatures. Following heavy rain last September, more than in the previous five Septembers combined, red wine production in 2018 from our vineyard in Davidsonville was less than half the amount it had been the year before.

Others in agriculture fared even worse. Some Maryland vineyards produced no red wine at all. Vegetable production at one local farm was a quarter of the usual yield. Several neighbors who grow soybeans simply didn’t harvest them.

It doesn’t have to be this way. New agricultural practices can make our farms more resilient and help address climate change. The key is capturing atmospheric carbon and storing it in soil. These regenerative practices are already used in many parts of the country and are ready for large-scale deployment at relatively low cost. The challenge now is to encourage farmers to adopt these new methods.

Historically, changes in land use — such as conversion of woodland to cropland — and common agricultural practices like tillage (prepping the land for crops) have resulted in significant net loss of soil carbon. One quarter of all anthropogenic carbon in the atmosphere, about 450 billion metric tons emitted over 8,000 years, can be attributed to these harmful land use practices.

Enhanced soil management can reverse this trend by reducing agricultural emissions and, in many cases, resulting in net draw down of greenhouse gases. Because soil stores three times more carbon than the atmosphere, increasing soil carbon content by even a small percentage represents a substantial mechanism to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide and reverse global warming.

Soil carbon can be increased through plant assimilation of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and reducing losses associated with decomposition of soil organic matter. Returning agricultural land to native ecosystems is probably the best way to increase levels of stored carbon over time, but this is not always an option. Improved cropping systems, conversion to perennial crops, agroforestry and novel grazing methods are also very effective.

The National Academy of Sciences has conservatively estimated that improved agricultural land management could result in removal of 250 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year in the United States, nearly 20 percent of the total greenhouse gas emissions each year. Achieving this level of carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere will require active participation by America’s 750,000 farmers.

In addition to their benefits on the climate, practices that sequester carbon can also boost agricultural yields, increase soil nutrient retention and enhance soil water infiltration and holding capacity. In other words, investing in regenerative agriculture will not only reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it will also benefit farmers and rural communities and improve global resilience to climate change.

Even with these direct benefits to farmers, additional incentives and education will be required. First, many small farmers face a great deal of risk and are reluctant to change from time-tested methods. Second, soil enhancing methods must be adapted to specific places and crops, and this need for customization complicates implementation. Third, many farmers believe that they should be compensated for removing atmospheric carbon that came from non-agricultural settings, suggesting that financing these changes must also be considered.

There are several mechanisms already being used throughout the country to engage farmers in this process of change. Carbon offset markets, which directly compensate farmers for achieving quantifiable emission goals, represent the most ambitious approach. The California Air Resources Board protocol that allows rice farmers to sell offsets into the state’s cap and trade market is one example.

Other methods to finance farmer incentives include direct subsidies, such as those used by the Natural Resources Conservation Service to achieve conservation and water quality goals, and certifications or labeling based on sustainability-based performance standards established by agricultural distributors and retailers like the Field to Farm Alliance.

Now is the time for policy makers to engage farmers on climate change. First, the state should fund the Maryland Healthy Soil Initiative that was created to develop agricultural responses to climate change. Second, it should establish a carbon offset market that would allow electric companies to meet their renewable energy requirement by purchasing credits from farmers who adopt the necessary practices. Third, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s proposed carbon cap and dividend program should be modified to allow revenues to be used to purchase “carbon farming” services.

Maryland farmers lead the nation in adopting conservation measures that improve water quality. Engaging them to put carbon back in soil is an obvious and potentially powerful way to reverse climate change while enhancing global food security.

What is the origin of “Dodon” soils?

If you take a tour with a winemaker, the topic will frequently turn to soil. Depending on where you are, you might hear about the kimmeridgian limestone of Chablis, the montmorillonite (aka blue) clay of Pomerol, or the alluvial gravel, clay, and sand of the Rutherford Bench. In many winemakers’ minds, the soil defines the wine, trumping both climate and human influences. To hear a winemaker tell it, the soil of their region or vineyard is unlike the soil anywhere in the world, and without doubt the very best for growing wine grapes. I’m as guilty as anybody of this hyperbole, and to support my case, or perhaps to atone for boastfulness, I set out to understand the origin and implications of the soil at Dodon.

Geologist Bubba Beasley profiles Dodon soils before planting Block 40 in 2015.

Most of what follows traces the geological history of Dodon soils. If you just want the bottom line, you can skip to the last section, Viticulture and Carbon. If you want to learn more, you can listen to Levi Dalton’s excellent interview with geologist Brenna Quigley.

In the Beginning

Much of what farmers think of as soil, something that will support a plant root, is filled with air and water that is constantly exchanged with the atmosphere. Another large portion is composed of living organisms – roots, microbes, arthropods, earthworms, and small mammals – and other organic matter that come and go with the seasons. The solid bits of soil – rocks and minerals - are the most stable and have complex origins that go back about 14.5 billion years to the origin of the universe.

The earliest subatomic particles that make up soil minerals – electrons and quarks – appeared a fraction of a second after the Big Bang. These particles in turn created the protons and neutrons that combined to form hydrogen and helium. Over the next half billion years, these elements joined to produce stars, within which arose the first twenty-six elements of the periodic table, including carbon, oxygen, magnesium, silicon, sulfur, iron, and so on.

Under the right conditions, especially in the cooling aftermath of supernova, the remaining elements appeared, and minerals formed by combining elements into crystals. Because they have gravity, minerals organized into new stars, nebula, planets, and galaxies.

The earth itself formed 4.5 billion years ago out of the debris of exploding stars, so all the mineral components of soil can be said to have cosmic origins. What we see now is merely the result of chemistry, biology, and plate tectonics that recycle the elements over unimaginably long time frames.

It’s a spellbinding story vividly told by George Mason University Professor Robert Hazen in The Story of Earth.

Moving Continents, Building Mountains

The story of Dodon soils starts about a billion years ago with formation of the supercontinent Rodinia. The eastern margins of Laurentia (the geological ancestor of North America) collided with continents that now make up the Baltics and Eastern Europe (called Baltica), the Amazon, and West Africa. When continents collide, the earth’s crust tends to uplift to form tall mountains, a process known as an orogeny. In the case of the eastern portions of Laurentia, the event is known as the Grenville orogeny.

In the 400 million years of Rodinia’s life, weathering and erosion flattened the Grenville mountains, leaving only their innermost cores of metamorphic rock, the type of rock that is created when minerals are subjected to intense pressure. While most of the Grenville rocks remaining today are covered by much newer formations, exposures of these billion year old rocks are found where newer ones have been worn away, including areas north of Interstate 95 in parts of Montgomery, Howard, Carroll, and Baltimore counties, as well as other states throughout the mid-Atlantic and northeast. Much of the Blue Ridge Mountain range of central Virginia has its origins in the Grenville orogeny.

When the tectonic plates reversed direction, Rodinia separated into two large landmasses, Laurentia and Gondwana (the forerunner of Africa, India, South America, Antarctica, and much of southern Asia), and several smaller islands, including Baltica. During this period, Laurentia straddled the equator, with the current east coast facing south.  At least one analysis suggests that the land mass on which Dodon now resides was part of Gondwana, located about where the Canary Islands are today.

Oceans Emerge

The rift that split Rodinia began with basaltic lava flows that lasted several hundred million years, creating the Iapetan ocean. Sediments from the eroding Grenville mountain range accumulated along the shoreline, and toward the end of this period, shells from rapidly emerging mollusk populations added carbonates such as calcite to a mix that would eventually be transported to the mid-Atlantic coastal plain that makes up the area east of Interstate 95.

The Taconic Orogeny

The second chapter of Dodon soils begins about 540 million years ago when the continental drifts again changed direction. As Laurentia, Baltica, and a microcontinent known as Avalonia began to drift toward one another, the denser ocean crust was forced under Baltica’s lighter continental crust, creating a zone of subduction, an area much like the current Ring of Fire in the Pacific. The resulting volcanoes and uplift of coastal Baltica, known as the Taconic Orogeny, were separated from Laurentia by a shallow sea basin that contained Grenville sediments and carbonates.   

Pangea

The third phase, the Acadian and Alleghenian orogeny, began about 300 million years ago when Laurentia, Baltica, and Gondwana collided to form the supercontinent Pangea, forming the Central Pangean Mountains that eventually became what are now the Appalachian Mountains, Morocco’s Little Atlas Mountains, and the Scottish Highlands. Because it involved two continental plates, this event involved uplift with rock forming by metamorphosis as one continent rolled, like an ocean wave, over the other. The result is layers of diverse rock with a beautiful rolling form, called a syncline, that can be seen at the Sideling Hill road cut on Interstate 68.

Polly and Tom inside the mid-Atlantic rift in Iceland’s Þingvellir National Park

Pangea lasted for about 100 million years, but the direction of plate movement shifted over time. Seven continents began to drift apart to create the earth form that is familiar to us today, leaving Dodon in North America. The breakup of Pangea continues today with lava flows from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a rift in the earth’s surface that can be seen in Iceland’s Þingvellir National Park. As a result, the Atlantic Ocean widens by an inch or two each year.   

Erosion and Sedimentation

The next 175 million years of the story of Dodon soil is one of erosion and sedimentation.  As the continents separated, unconsolidated and partially consolidated sediments deposited along a coastline that is not significantly different from that which exists today. These coastal plain sediments in cross section look like a wedge, thick to the east and thinning to a feather edge at the “fall line” that demarcates a region of hard crystalline basement rock from one with softer, sedimentary and transported rock. Interstate 95 follows the Atlantic seaboard fall line, connecting major cities that mark the end of navigable rivers.

Dramatic Heating and Cooling

The period known as the Mid Miocene Climatic Optimum (MMCO), from 17 to 14 million years ago, was characterized by rising carbon dioxide levels, going from 400 to 500 ppm, and higher temperatures, as much as 22 degrees above those of the preceding 10 million years. The proximal cause of the rising carbon dioxide is believed to be significant tectonic (formation of the Himalayas) and volcanic (formation of the Cascade Mountain range and the subsequent the Columbia River basalt lava flows) activity.

Calvert Cliffs State Park is a good place to see the soil strata left by the third marine transgression during the mid-Miocene. The gray (clay) layers contain a great deal of shell and fossil sediments that may contribute minerality to Dodon wine.

Following the MMCO, the earth dramatically cooled over about 10 million years. Warm season grasses (for example, sorghum and corn) that assimilate carbon dioxide and water more efficiently than cool season grasses (rye and fescue) expanded to become ecologically significant near the end of this period. The resulting high soil organic matter content and water retention capacity of grassland soils that characterized the late Miocene produced a carbon and water vapor sink that, combined with the lower evapotranspiration of grassland, contributed to lower carbon dioxide levels and the cooler, drier climate that has characterized human history.

Sea levels were unusually dynamic during the MMCO and the cooling period that followed. Along the Atlantic seaboard, three marine transgression and regression events left distinct sedimentary strata characterized by coarse-grained rock and mineral fragments such as sandstone, deposited during periods of rapidly moving water, and fine-grained silts or marls (a combination of limestone sediments and silt) deposited in slower moving, estuary environments. Fossilized remains of sea life add to the complexity of these sedimentary soils. The Calvert Formation, which makes up the exposed soil of a large portion of southern Maryland, including Dodon, was deposited during the last of these events.

As the climate cooled, the oceans receded, leaving a final layer of shells and other sea deposits. Additional soils were transported from the west by wind, erosion, and rivers. These soils are the result of weathering mountains that had been compressed, folded, rolled, and telescoped so that most of the rocks moved great distances from their site of origin and were then stacked like a shuffled deck of cards over hundreds of millions of years. Fine, silty particles from weathering of these diverse rocks arrived by wind and slow moving delta waters. Larger particles and gravel arrived by faster moving river flows.

Animals and Agriculture

Rocks from diverse origins transported during the Pleistocene to Dodon by nature.

The earth continued to cool until the Pleistocene, about 3.5 million years ago, when carbon dioxide levels stabilized into an oscillating pattern, ranging from about 150 ppm to 275 ppm that persisted until about 1950. This period has been dominated by repeated glaciation (at the lower bounds of atmospheric carbon dioxide) that reached the 40th parallel, about the Mason-Dixon line, with permafrost likely covering most of southern Maryland. While in some areas there is a thin layer of soil transported largely by wind, most of the exposed soil at Dodon is characterized by erosion-prone Calvert sand and clay deposited during the Miocene. In a few areas, including the outcrop in the Cabernet Sauvignon blocks of Dodon’s east vineyard, there is a sheet of erosion resistant sand and gravel deposited by a river during the Pleistocene, about 2.5 million years ago.

Viticulture and Carbon

Although the parent material has been reasonably constant since the Miocene, soil, even its mineral component, is constantly changing as a result of the biological and physical forces around it. Trees and grasses sequester carbon and add organic matter. Bacteria, fungi, and protozoa secrete enzymes that change soil chemistry, erode rocks into minerals, and release carbon into the atmosphere. Wind and rain add to this weathering, and they transport minerals into streams where they wash or blow into the Chesapeake Bay. Humans also modify the soil, starting with Native Americans who burned the underbrush of the native forests to facilitate hunting. Later European settlers cut down trees, built houses and roads, and cultivated crops, adding another powerful force for change.

What can we learn from the story of Dodon soils? The first lesson is that soil is not a static object. Rather it is in constant flux, so there is no single origin for the soil here. That said, several themes relevant to viticulture at Dodon emerge from the history.

Until European settlers arrived in North America, our region was largely forest, suggesting that the soil (and climate) here may provide better habitat for trees than grassland. We believe that this soil will also be good for grapevines, which grow naturally in forested environments. Viewed from this perspective, a vineyard that mimics a forest is likely to be healthier and more resilient than one that resembles pasture. Because they are replenished by woody material - fallen trees and leaf litter, forest topsoils differ significantly in their organic and microbial content from grassland. I’ll have more on the implications of this conclusion in a subsequent post.

The complex nature of the soil at Dodon provides an interesting context in which to grow grapes. Flavors in wine are in part derived from minerals in soil, which as we’ve seen vary considerably based on the source of the parent material and subsequent environmental influences. These minerals create the environment in which the mycorrhiza (fungi that live in symbiotic ways with vine roots) breakdown nutrients and supply them to the vine. At Dodon, because the parent material comes from extremely heterogeneous origins that in some cases formed more than a billion years ago, flavors of wine grown here are likely to differ from regions with more homogeneous mineral components.

A final lesson may be crucial to our collective future, not just our young vineyard. Although the cause of rising carbon dioxide levels is different, the middle and late Miocene were, like our own time, characterized by rising temperature, melting glaciers, and encroaching seas. The subsequent cooling climate was partly, if not mostly, the result of carbon sequestration in rangelands and mineralization into carbonates in deep oceans, technologies that are available to us today as we search for solutions to climate change.

Climate Change, Part 2: A New Year’s Resolution

As a farmer and grape grower, the effects of climate change are hard to miss, and the news is getting worse.  Even the best-case projections regarding temperature, sea level rise, floods, fire, disease, and agricultural output are frightening. Partly due to changes in the climate, extinction rates among all species are about 1,000 times greater than they would be in the absence of human activity. Pulitzer prize winning author Elizabeth Kolbert has called this phenomenon The Sixth Extinction.

Ecologists and philosophers have started to wonder whether humans will survive the climate change experience, reminding me of a Tom Lehrer tune from the 1960s. Expecting that we will survive, my Christmas wish is that the resulting world will be the kind in which our grandchildren will still want to live.

The immediate cause of changes in the climate is an imbalance between carbon storage in soil and other reservoirs and its release into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, trapping heat and acidifying the oceans. (You can learn more about the carbon cycle here.) While burning fossil fuels gets most of the attention, modern agriculture, through deforestation, mechanical and chemical disruption of soil, and confined livestock facilities, has contributed as much as 40% of the increase in atmospheric CO2.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Trees, grasses, and other plants carry out photosynthesis that uses the carbon from CO2 to produce sugars that are transported via the roots into the soil, feeding a diverse ecosystem of microbes, insects, earthworms, and even vertebrates.  Agricultural approaches may thus be deceptively simple yet practical and potentially powerful methods to extract CO2 from air and store it as organic carbon in the soil. Research suggests that adding 0.4% more organic matter each year to agricultural land across the globe would sequester all the CO2 released by human activity.

Is 0.4% per year additional organic matter achievable? Absolutely. Using cover crops and advanced grazing techniques, North Dakota rancher and farmer Gabe Brown has added organic matter at about twice this rate for 25 years, providing proof of principle. University of California at Berkeley Professor Claire Kremen has done the design work, USDA’s Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program has done field trials and created educational programs and tools, and organizations such as Future Harvest CASA and county agricultural extension offices offer support, education, and knowledge sharing among farmers and landowners in our region.

Put simply, while building soil organic matter may be only one part of an overall solution to global warming, it is literally “shovel ready.” The challenge now is spreading the word, creating the incentives, and putting on our boots. As we approach the start of the 2019 session of the General Assembly, there are several critical actions to take.

First, we should hold Governor Hogan and the Maryland Department of Agriculture accountable. In 2017, the General Assembly passed the Maryland Healthy Soils Act that requires MDA to provide incentives that would improve soil health, monitor progress, and help the state meet goals set by the Maryland Climate Change Commission. Despite the promise, no new practices or incentives have emerged. To reinvigorate this program and regain climate leadership for the state’s largest industry, Maryland could join California in committing to the Global Soil Health Challenge.

Second, state and county representatives should add a “carbon note” to all legislation. Proposed legislation in Maryland is always accompanied by a “fiscal note,” a brief description of the potential financial consequences of the bill. But fiscal notes don’t include other indirect costs to the taxpayers, such as the cost of global warming. In order to help legislators understand the benefits and risks of legislation on climate change, a similar “carbon note” could be required. The practice would help keep the issue front and center.

Third, we need to modify incentives so that farmers will implement methods that will add carbon to soil.  Today’s agricultural methods were developed during the Green Revolution, in the aftermath of the great depression, the dust bowl, and World War II, when energy was cheap and plentiful and people around the world were hungry. Tax policy, agricultural programs, and business practices designed to support these systems now have entrenched interests behind them, making alternatives hard to implement. Difficult as it may be, revising tax policy to account for the climate-related costs of carbon use would accelerate the transition to “carbon farming.”

There are also a few things you can do at home to return carbon to the soil. First, you can let your grass grow. As it grows, the ratio of carbon to nitrogen in the blade increases. In contrast, short cuttings (those that result from weekly lawn mowing) have high levels of nitrogen that, because there is little carbon to hold it, then leaches into ground water and the Bay. Infrequent mowing, annually is best, has other advantages. Less fuel and labor are needed, long roots improve soil structure allowing better water infiltration, and over time a natural meadow of diverse plants, insects, and wildlife will develop.

Second, you can plant an edible landscape on even a small plot of ground. Americans often plant vegetable gardens during times of scarce resources. About 20 million households established victory gardens during World War II, and nearly half of all Americans grew their own vegetables during the early 1980s recession. The personal benefits include reductions in transportation (both from farm to market and market to home), better nutrition, and the sense of community that comes when everyone does their part.  There are added benefits of incorporating these herbs and vegetables into the landscape in terms of soil health, reductions in pesticide use, and aesthetics.  

Because they sequester twice as much carbon as forestland, vineyards represent an excellent way to add carbon to soil. When we started, average soil carbon was less than 1%, and unmeasurable in some areas. Through cover cropping, reduced soil disturbance, and compost additions, we are up to about 2.5%, about the norm for most vineyards in the world, but we think we should go higher.  Although conventional wisdom says that vines should struggle, we believe that additional organic matter will result in healthier, more resilient plants that will resist disease, ripen earlier, and have more flavor. At least this is the experience of some of the best châteaux on the left bank in Bordeaux.

While storing carbon in soil is a simple tool to help solve the current climate challenge, the transition will not be easy. Agriculture is more perspiration than romance, and some of these methods are labor intensive. Farm labor is in short supply, and there will inevitably be a process of trial and error as we determine the right crops and cover crops for our environment and each agricultural product. In the short term, these factors could result in reductions in farm incomes. But long term, reducing CO2 and creating resilient landscapes is the best way to prevent, or at least mitigate, the catastrophes of climate change.And, of course, more carbon in the soil leads to more nutritious, flavorful food and wine, and that will also make our grandchildren’s world a better place to live.

Climate Change, Part 1: A Christmas Wish

Polly and I are spending the holidays with our granddaughter, Juana Magdalena, in a little town called City Bell, just east of Buenos Aires. Polly’s three daughters are all here too, almost as much fun as Juana. As the summer solstice passes, our days are filled with family, exercise, asados, newspapers, a bit of sightseeing, and, for me, Spanish lessons. There is a fruit and vegetable farm within walking distance, and freshly butchered meat and chickens on the way, with none of the planting, weeding, feeding, watering, and picking chores of farm life.  

The family time also allows us to reflect on this new grandparenting stage of life. We intensely appreciate the diverse beauty and richness of the world as we experience the munificence of family, friends, and colleagues. Building on the knowledge of a hundred thousand years of evolution and the gifts of our parents and grandparents, we can learn and debate, try to understand the universe and our place in it, and create beauty through art, literature, music, and winemaking. As at the farm, I awaken each morning profoundly grateful for these gifts.

And yet, I wonder, as all grandparents must, what kind of a world Juana will inherit.

The world has changed a great deal in my lifetime, mostly for the better. In his recent book, Enlightenment Now, Steven Pinker has documented the extraordinary progress we humans have made to improve health, safety, family incomes, and life expectancy; expand democracy, education, and equal rights; and reduce poverty, hunger, and violence.

This progress extends to many environmental challenges, especially those that are visible to the naked eye. The Chesapeake Bay is (slowly) getting cleaner, acid rain has declined, and bald eagles have returned.  Deforestation of the Amazon has slowed, the amount of protected terrestrial and marine habitat has increased, tankers spill less oil, and the ozone hole is getting smaller. This progress, Pinker argues, is the result of activism, legislation, regulation, technological innovation, and global cooperation, and it leads Pinker to be optimistic about the future.

Yet there are enormous challenges ahead. For most of the past 420,000 years, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels remained below 300 parts per million (ppm). They started climbing during the industrial revolution, reached 315 ppm when I was born and now exceed 400 ppm. The average temperature in Anne Arundel County has climbed from 55.4 degrees F to 56.9 degrees in my lifetime. Multiple reports, including those from the Fourth National Climate Assessment and United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change describe the expected rise in temperature and sea level, destructive storms and fires, increases in mosquito and tick-borne diseases, and declining agricultural output. Our experience during the 2018 vintage is perhaps an ominous preview.

But these challenges, as significant (and devastating) as they might be, don’t reflect all the vitality and beauty of the ecosystem in which we live and the danger it faces from climate change. In Yellowstone Park, native plant species are being replaced by invasive cheatgrass, reducing forage for wildlife. On the Galapagos Islands, increasingly frequent El Niño conditions block the flow of nutrients that feed plankton, threatening penguins, marine iguanas, and even Darwin’s finches. The number of insects has declined, at least in some parts of world, by more than 75% because of habitat loss and intensive use of pesticides.

The rapid loss of plant and animal species is frightening. For example, what would happen if there were no pollinators? It turns out that life without them can endure, but it may not flourish. After overuse of pesticides eliminated bee populations decades ago, growers in the Maoxian Valley of Himalayan China hand-pollinate hundreds of thousands of apple and pear trees. Because fewer pollen-donor trees are required and humans effectively pollinate 100% of the flowers (bees only pollinate about 30%), yield per acre increases. Because they don’t need to worry about killing beneficial insects, these growers can use more insecticides to produce the unblemished fruit that brings high prices.

If efficiency, defined by higher yields and prices per unit of input, is the goal, then hand-pollination is the way to go when human labor is cheap and plentiful. Moreover, the image of an entire village turning out every spring to pollinate the region’s crop, each person brushing the flowers on 10-12 trees each day, conveys a certain sense of nobility and identity. Despite these advantages, this world seems sterile, lacking complexity, balance, depth, interest, and resilience, and our experience growing wine suggests it does not result in the best fruit. Likewise, most apple producing areas of the Himalayan region have chosen to reestablish pollinator populations and have not followed the path taken in the Maoxian Valley.

As humans, we cultivate our own welfare, and hopefully produce the best wine, by enhancing the health, diversity, and abundance of life around us, and not by disrupting ecosystems, destroying large sections of habitat, or raising animals in confinement, methods that might have more immediate financial return but don’t reflect their true economic costs. My Christmas wish is that Juana will find the beauty and strength that comes from being part of an interconnected whole, sheltered and nourished by nature, and that she will use her compassion, ingenuity, and knowledge to enrich the ensemble of the soil, water, air, plants, animals, and people that surround us.

2018 Vintage Summary

Tuesday, October 2 was a beautiful, if somewhat warm, autumn day – the kind of day that we hope for in early October, when we are typically just starting to pick the black grapes. But this, the final day of picking in 2018, signaled the perplexing character of the vintage. The image of Dodon’s weather vanes pointing toward each other on an otherwise lovely morning is its lasting symbol.

The year started with brutally cold temperatures, as low as two degrees below zero (Fahrenheit) on the morning of January 7. While a few weeks of very cold temperatures has many benefits in the vineyard, we start to worry about bud viability when temperatures approach zero. In contrast, February was usually warm – speeding vine phenology - but March was cool – slowing the vines. Bud break occurred in the Chardonnay on April 15, about on-schedule, followed by freezing temperatures three days later.

The next variety to bud, the Cabernet Franc, waited until May, indicating that a late year would ensue. Yet this isn’t what happened. Bloom, which typically occurs 45-60 days after bud break, arrived just 24 days later. Suddenly, it was an early year, requiring adjustments to already modified schedules for canopy management and sprays. The vines were confused by the temperature extremes, as were their human partners. Dodon’s vineyard manager, Roberto Gomez, finally thawed from winter pruning, complained of vertigo.

And then it rained. And rained. And rained. The soil at Dodon is made up of about 50% solid matter – rocks, minerals, microbes, insects – and 50% pores, occupied by air and water. When the pores fill completely with water early in the season, the roots don’t have enough oxygen to develop normally. In response, the leaves produce more stomata (the structures responsible for evapotranspiration) than they would otherwise. The effect is to make the vines more susceptible to drought.

So of course, drought came in early July, and the vines became stressed. As we finished irrigating the south slope, it started raining again, this time lots of it. Our colleague Jim Law of Linden Vineyards described it as biblical in its proportions. We had more rain in September than in the previous five Septembers combined. And when it wasn’t raining, it was hot and very humid. Most people correctly associate excess moisture, whether from humidity or rain, with molds and mildews. But by drowning the roots late in the season, excess rain causes the vines to focus on survival by growing roots and foliage, diverting energy from ripening.

Our usual response to excess rain is to let the canopy grow higher, increasing evapotranspiration, and let the grass grow to create competition with the vines. But this year the amount of rainfall overwhelmed these measures. The canopy developed downy mildew, and the grass grew so quickly that we couldn’t keep it out of the fruit zone. The fruit ripened unevenly, with the ripest fruit falling prey to botrytis and other late season bunch rots. We sorted heavily while picking, leaving about half of the black fruit on the vineyard floor.

To say that the vintage was, and remains, puzzling is an understatement. We never quite knew what to expect. The vines remained confused all year, with growing shoot tips appearing around the vineyard throughout September. This atypical behavior also occurred in other plants, particularly crab apples and magnolias that could be seen blooming throughout southern Maryland this fall.

Decisions about picking were particularly uncertain. In mid-August, I told the team that I didn’t think we would begin picking for at least two weeks. Four days later, we picked the first of the Sauvignon Blanc followed by the Chardonnay, both from the east vineyard. We waited a week to pick the Sauvignon from the west vineyard.

We also picked the black fruit earlier, and thus less ripe, than in the past. In the cellar, we extracted less aggressively, leaving behind the unripe tannins that cause bitterness. With less structure, the wines will need less oak and more stirring to achieve their potential. As a result, the 2018 red wines promise to be more accessible early in their life, and less age-worthy, than is typical for Dodon wines.

Despite the challenges, or maybe because of them, I’m left feeling extraordinarily grateful for this vintage and the lessons that it brought. There were many bright spots. Our effort to create a balanced ecosystem seems to be working. The increasing diversity of insect life around the vineyard is stunning, and except for the occasional spot treatment, we didn’t use any insecticides this year. A mantid even joined us on the sorting table this year.

While there was a bit of mold in the Sauvignon clusters, the white wines turned out beautifully. I’m especially excited about the Chardonnay, which has the depth, range, and vitality that we seek from this classic variety.

The main lesson, though, is that the climate is changing rapidly. Over the last three years, old weather patterns have given way to prolonged periods of drought and rainfall. It has tested our farming and winemaking skills, the front of house team who rearranged plans daily, and even club members who had hoped to attend one of the seven rained-out Dodon ‘til Dusk gatherings. (Thank you for your patience.) These challenges will continue, especially in the mid-Atlantic where temperatures and rainfall are predicted to rise faster than in other parts of the world.

In response to these changes, we need to think critically about how we can adapt and become more resilient. It’s crazy to irrigate in a year of record setting rainfall, but that’s what we needed to do. Fortunately there are solutions, some that we are already working on. Soil with good structure allows excess water to pass through quickly to the aquafers below. Soil rich in organic matter holds on to some of the water until it is needed by the plants. In the pastures, we can create this healthy soil using a technique called MOB grazing; in the vineyard, we can create it using appropriate cover crops with deep roots and plenty of residual biomass.

As the year comes to an end, the 2018 vintage reminds me of Bach’s six suites for solo cello, performed wonderfully by Yo-Yo Ma.  Each suite is based on a different French dance, and each is composed of six movements that span the range human emotion, none the same but all very beautiful. The same might be said of the variation that occurs between vintages, and in 2018, variation within the vintage. Like Bach’s cello suites, some vintages are deep and soulful, some sad and mournful, others light and lively, but all with their own exquisite charm. The lesson of this vintage is that we can succeed by dancing together as a community to nature’s varied tunes.

Raise a Glass to Polly

Polly is the inspirational leader of the Dodon team. She keeps all of us going in the right direction, gets her hands dirty when needed, and looks out for the human side of the vineyard and cellar.    She brings these same qualities to her career in public health policy where she has recently been recognized as an Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. It’s a rare honor, conferred on only a few non-nurses each year.  The formal announcement can be found here.

Some Frequently Asked Questions about Dodon: A Conversation with Polly and Tom

Why is the winery open by appointment only?

Tom. Dodon is home to three generations of our family, a fact that shapes all activities at the farm. When visitors come to the vineyard and winery, they are visiting our home, and as in our home, the space and the events that we host reflect our tastes and preferences – simple, yet refined and textured; modern, yet pastoral and hospitable; elegant, yet warm and intimate. And, as in our home, we plan gatherings at which we can be fully present and engaged with each of our guests.

Polly. Because we are only open by appointment, we can organize our schedules to ensure that we can spend time with our guests. We want to share the Dodon story in a calm, comfortable atmosphere. The seated tasting format also emphasizes the role of the person hosting the tastings, who is not only knowledgeable about wine, but also an integral part of Dodon’s vineyard and winemaking.

Are children welcome?

Polly. The length of the tours and tastings and most other events at Dodon makes it difficult for children to enjoy themselves; the emphasis is on wine and wine education, and we do not serve refreshments or have activities for those under 21 years.  We do, however, hold picnics in the summer, called "Dodon 'til Dusk,” and wine club members are welcome to bring their families to these outdoor evenings.

Tom.  As a working farm and winery, we have equipment and materials that can quickly result in serious injury.  For their safety, neither children nor adults should enter the vineyards, cellar, or farm buildings unless accompanied by a member of the Dodon staff.  Most importantly, children should remain with parents both for their safety and so that other guests can enjoy their time with us.

What about pets?

Polly. Except for service dogs, we cannot accommodate pets on the property.

Which wine is your favorite?

Polly. Oronoco. I love the sweet, soft, silky feminine curves that are unusual in an American Cabernet. If the Cabernet in a given vintage does not offer that kind of richness, we won’t make Oronoco that year.

Tom. It depends. It depends on my mood, the company, and the meal. I get excited about lots of wines, many of which we don’t produce. But when cooking for guests, I often make something that will pair with Dungannon.

Why doesn’t Dodon participate in wine competitions?

Tom. The philosophy at Dodon - in the vineyard, in the cellar, and in the sales and marketing function - is to always ask why we are doing something in the context of our goals.  Will an action improve the soil or the environment, result in better wine, or bring value to wine club members? If the answer to at least one of these questions isn’t clearly yes, then it’s unlikely that we’ll move forward. The question for us is, then, “If not essential to achieving our goals, why should we compete?” Moreover, to me at least, competition suggests winners and rankings.  At Dodon, however, our goal is not to be considered better than other producers.  Rather, we want to make wines that best express this site, the climate, and our approach to farming. This is why I enjoy tasting wines from producers across our region and around the world, always with an eye to understanding the why and how behind each wine. 

Polly. I would add that our decision not to participate in wine competitions at this point in our project is in no way a criticism of the sponsors or the wineries that participate. As Jancis Robinson has written, it is a very real accomplishment to satisfy any panel of judges and to be awarded a medal.

How do you set your prices?

Tom. We try to be as objective as we can by systematically comparing each Dodon wine with those of similar style. For example, when pricing Dodon Collectors wines, we typically purchase bottles from different producers in Margaux, St. Julien, and Pauillac on Bordeaux’ left bank and St. Émilion on the right. Using a triplicate format (flights of three wines tasted blindly, sometimes with two of the same wine in the flight), we make multiple comparisons based on structure, depth, balance, and other characteristics of the wine. Once we’ve arrived at a relative order, we price a Dodon wine well below the price of the bottle that we rated just after the Dodon.

Polly.  Dodon brand wines (varietal Sauvignon and Chardonnay, Rosé, and South Slope) are made to be accessible without prolonged cellaring, so these are priced accordingly. We want to have a range of prices, so hopefully everyone can find a Dodon wine that they love at a price that is affordable.

Do you have any plans to expand or to make new wines?

Tom. For the time being, our emphasis is on learning to make age-worthy wines that are characterized by depth, harmony, and balance from our site. In other words, we plan to concentrate on the quality of what we produce now.  This goal requires a singular focus on a few wines, and I don’t expect to get it perfect in my lifetime. There is still much to learn.  For example, in 2017 we produced wine from four new clones of Sauvignon Blanc and three new clones of Chardonnay, Cabernet Franc, and Merlot. In the process, we discovered that each clone requires different viticultural methods, such as the amount of sun exposure, to produce the best fruit. That said, by concentrating on fundamentals, I like to think we constantly innovate, especially in the vineyard. We currently have a block devoted solely to experimentation, including our studies of cover crops and compost teas.

Polly. To tell you the truth, if I were deciding by myself I probably would have been open to producing additional wines. But I think Tom is right; he brings a rigor and a discipline to this project. That is what makes it unique, and the deeper we get, the more I realize how necessary that singular focus is. 

"Slow" Wine Tastings at Dodon

People are sometimes curious about why wine tastings at Dodon are by appointment and are seated.

The short answer is that during our wine journeys, the tastings we have most enjoyed are the “slow” ones, the ones at which we engage in a deep discussion of the “hows and whys” behind the wines with a member of the winery’s team. 

Wine represents the people who plant, grow, and make it, as well as the people who serve it and join you at the table. The sheer magnitude of the endeavor of growing wine requires a community of dedicated people. Wine reflects not only the life cycle of its vintage, each with its own story of frost, rain, hail, heat waves, drought, and at least in the mid-Atlantic, hurricanes, but also the next life cycle which takes it from fermentation to barrel and then bottle aging.

Our preferred way to enjoy wine is around the dinner table, with thoughtfully prepared food and a large group of family and friends.

The vineyards and the winery at Dodon are an extension of our home, and so when guests visit, we see it as an occasion. We sit down together at a table, ask questions, share stories, and enjoy the wine together.

Dodon's Collectors Tasting begins at 3 pm with an aperitif in the tasting room where we explain how we blend classical farming practices with modern technology to create a diverse, yet balanced ecosystem, and dive into Dodon's history. We then enjoy a seated tasting of the three Collectors wines paired with local cheese and charcuterie.  Dungannon 2014 and Oronoco 2014 together with their white wine counterpart, Drum Point 2016, make up Dodon’s tête de cuvée. These are the wines we blend first, from the best barrels, and only in the best vintages. A guided walk through the vineyard is available to those who wish to do so.  

Our shorter, Introductory tour and tasting begins at 1 pm and includes a discussion of Dodon's history, farming and winemaking philosophy. This tour concludes with a seated tasting of Dodon Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, and South Slope and a discussion of Dodon's terroir.

We would be delighted to welcome you to Dodon and to  offer you a “slow” tasting that includes a conversation about the  “hows and whys” behind our wines. But most importantly, we look forward to sitting around the table and getting to know you.

Looking Beyond Organic Agriculture: Part II, Biodynamic Agriculture

In my last post on organic agriculture, I discussed the importance of balance in the vineyard, especially in the soil where microbes play a critical role in creating a healthy environment for plant growth. This notion of ecological balance is central to a form of organic agriculture known as biodynamics. 

First proposed by German philosopher Rudolf Steiner during a series of five lectures in the 1920s, practitioners of biodynamic agriculture view the farm itself as a self-contained ecosystem that requires balance to function properly. In other words, in optimal circumstances, a farm can function successfully without external inputs. 

Biodynamic agriculture is practiced throughout the world in many agricultural systems, including vineyards, and it has long had a certifying organization (Demeter). Many of Burgundy’s most well-known wineries, such as Domaine Leflaive and Domaine Leroy, rely exclusively on these techniques in their vineyards. The practice is also common in Bordeaux (for example, Château Palmer), the Loire (Château de la Roche aux Moines), and Sonoma (Bonterra Organic Vineyards and Benziger Family Wines). 

Those who practice biodynamics believe that their fruit is healthier and ripens earlier, and that the resulting wines have more depth and balance than those grown using conventional or standard organic techniques. These winemakers also believe that biodynamic wines are more reflective of the terroir in which they are grown.

Several biodynamic producers tie shoots together and form an arc, tucking the growing end back down into the trellis. Despite the lack of sunshine and absence of hedging or leafing, I didn’t see any mildew, and the wines made from these vines are clearly the product of fully ripe grapes. Something is clearly in balance.

There are many parallels between organic and biodynamic methods, including composting, cover cropping and companion planting, integration of livestock and crops, and avoidance of synthetic pesticides.  Indeed, organic certification is a requirement for Demeter’s biodynamic certification. What distinguishes biodynamic from organic agriculture is a set of practices that Steiner believed would harness non-physical “life-forces” that influence biology in desirable ways. 

These “dynamic” practices consist of planting, cultivating, and pruning according to phases of the moon, and use of nine “preparations” that include homeopathic doses of specific organic (cow manure seasoned in horns), herbal (for example, tea made from stinging nettles), and mineral (silica) substances that are applied as either soil amendments or foliar sprays.

I’ve been intrigued by biodynamics since we started the vineyard ten years ago. Ideas related to balance and healthy, living soils are consistent with our views at Dodon regarding the best ways to make wine and improve the environment. To explore biodynamic methods in more detail, Polly and I met last summer with biodynamic practitioners in both Burgundy and Bordeaux. 

We found that, while many vineyards actively promote the philosophy and tools of biodynamics to improve the quality of wine while reducing environmental impact, there is in practice a very broad range of interpretation and application of these precepts. Indeed, at the practitioner level, the definition of biodynamics is very hard to pin down.

Most of those with whom we spoke endorse applications of the preparations in the hopes of reducing use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. For the most part, however, these producers have not identified specific improvements in fruit or wine quality, nor have they noted reductions in their need for organic or synthetic pesticides since they started integrating biodynamic practices. In a difficult vintage, these producers are willing to use non-biodynamic tools as needed.

Eric de Suremain of Château de Monthelie picking stinging nettle used to prepare biodynamic preparation 504. The nettles are buried in wooden boxes or clay pots encased in peat for 1 year and then added to compost. Stinging nettle is said to have a relationship with iron, helps stabilize nitrogen, and promotes formation of humus.

For a small number of producers, however, such as Jean-Michel Comme, technical director at Château Pontet-Canet, and Eric de Suremain, fourth generation owner of Chȃteau de Monthelie and Domaine Eric de Suremain, biodynamics is a way of life. Jean-Michel and Eric have taken extraordinary risks to avoid use of non-organically certified material to maintain balance in their vineyards. Their stories are both interesting and informative. 

Jean-Michel and Eric view every aspect of life – the vineyard, the wines, the people, and the broader landscape – in terms of their relationship to nature and balance among the four essential elements of life – earth, air, water, and fire. Their biodynamic practices attempt to integrate these elements to regenerate the land. 

Weather, animals, vine varieties, invasive plants, insects and microbial pests, and human activity can all shift this elemental balance from health to disease. Rather than treating disease directly, however, the strategy is to return balance and harmony to the vineyard by feeding the soil. For example, Cabernet Sauvignon, a “fire” variety, usually does not do well in wet areas of a vineyard. In this case, fire and water are in conflict. Jean-Michel, however, has been able to balance these properties to produce stunning Cabernet from low lying areas of his vineyard where water often is in excess.  

In the vineyard with Jean-Michel Comme at Château Pontet-Canet. The dip in the background is an area that I would have predicted would have too much water for good Cabernet Sauvignon, but through Jean-Michel’s careful management of weeds and preparations, the fruit is always very high quality.

How does he do it? Jean-Michel scouts his vineyard daily for weeds that are associated with excess water. When found, he might use equisetum (a foliar spray) and silica (a soil amendment).  Both are elements with fire-like properties that make up two of the biodynamic preparations. Doing so results in more balanced growth, and the vines are much stronger and have a higher disease resistance. 

Jean-Michel also looks for the underlying causes of imbalance and lasting methods to restore it. When he identifies certain plants, bacteria, or animals in the vineyard, he doesn’t necessarily try to change them. Instead he views them as nature’s response to imbalance. In order to form an environment that is both complete and unique, he farms in a way that encourages synergy among the vines and their surroundings. In doing so, he creates a farm with individuality and distinction that ultimately translates into the special wines of Pontet-Canet. 

Despite the intuitive appeal of biodynamic agricultural methods, strict adherence comes with considerable risk. During the difficult 2016 vintage in Burgundy, Eric lost more than 90% of his crop, producing just 14 barrels from 40 acres, despite spraying for mildew 28 times, about twice his norm. This level of pesticide, even one that is organic, is likely to intensify imbalance, not reduce it. 

And then there is the fundamentally mystical interpretative framework of biodynamics. Despite their natural sources and homeopathic doses, the biodynamic preparations are still chemicals. While they could restore balance in some situations, they could also reduce it if misapplied. We also don’t know with any degree of certainty the benefits of carrying out vineyard tasks according to the phase of the moon, despite the obviously strong gravitational force that it exerts on the earth. 

What does all this mean for Dodon? The basic tenets of biodynamic agriculture are very similar to the agroecological methods that we’ve adopted. Both are focused on the relationship of the farm with nature, using biological principles to create balanced, diverse ecosystems characterized by healthy, microbially active soils, beneficial insect populations, and efficient long-term storage of carbon to create productive crop systems. For Dodon, the lessons of Jean-Michel and Eric are to listen carefully to what nature is telling us, and to think critically about our relationship with our surroundings. 

A new plot of wildflowers, including astor, buckwheat, coreopsis, dill, and several clovers, in Dodon's experimental vineyard. While the diversity of insect activity was stunning, these crops were too tall to plant under the vines, did not hold up to tractor use, and attracted deer that quickly turned their attention to eating the ripening fruit.

The challenges to creating a balanced ecosystem at Dodon are extraordinary. The property was farmed for nearly a quarter millennium with tobacco, followed by a half century of conventional tillage, synthetic fertilizers and herbicides, and limited crop rotation. Much of the surrounding landscape, farmed in a similar manner, has now transitioned to suburban turf grasses that require synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. All of this most certainly destabilized any natural balance that might have existed prior to the original patent to Frances Stockett in 1658.

It will take time, patience, creativity, intellectual honesty, and perspiration to restore Dodon to a balanced ecosystem. In future posts, I’ll discuss some of the ways, starting with rebuilding the microbial life of the soil, that we are trying to integrate with the surrounding ecosystem and what we’re learning from these experiments
 

2017 Vintage Summary: A Year of Providence

In what has become a metaphor for the 2017 vintage, a black widow found her way onto the sorting table in the last hours of harvest. We’ve always known that there are lots of black widows in the vineyard, but mostly they keep to themselves, quietly helping rid the vines of unwanted insects. How she got to the table is anyone’s guess. It seems unlikely that she was on a cluster when it was snipped into an unsuspecting hand, so perhaps she crawled into a picking basket that inadvertently landed on her web. In either case, we popped both the spider and her grape into the sorting bin, and off she went to the compost pile. No harm done to either party. 

For me, it was the last of a long string of “near-miss” reminders that nature is very present, very powerful, and very much in charge. It started with the false spring in late February, with temperatures reaching 79 degrees on March 1. The vines lost their “antifreeze” as the sap started to run, prompting concern about an early bud break.  Then came some good fortune as temperatures over the next three weeks rarely rose above 50 degrees. The plants remained dormant, finally emerging in early-April, a bit ahead of schedule, but with much less frost damage than would almost certainly have occurred had bud break been in mid-March. 

Our relationship with nature was largely uneventful in May, June, and July. Bloom came and went in 10 days - just what we like to see. June was dry, but July brought needed rain. Veraison (ripening) started early and went quickly. But this period did not go entirely without incident. In late May, we found extensive manmade injury from 2,4-D, a broadleaf herbicide related to dicamba that has caused serious problems in many farming regions this year. The Chardonnay blocks were especially damaged, with loss of about a third of the crop and difficulty ripening because of the damaged leaves.

In mid-July, nature again reminded us of her presence when a black snake found its way into the winery and curled up on Regina’s desk. In this case, it was human intervention - Kenna Musselman, general manager at Grapes Wine Bar -  and not providence who guided our visitor to a more appropriate napping place. 

Perhaps the snake was a sign of coming threats. August and September brought the hurricane season and cool weather. The cool temperatures were unsettling. Between August 25 and September 12, there were more days with highs under 70 degrees (4) than above 80 degrees (3). Ripening screeched to a halt; nothing progressed as sugars remained frighteningly low. Meanwhile, Harvey, Irma, Jose, and Maria all threatened massive rainstorms. We scrambled to get the vineyard ready for wet weather, picking what we could, and rushing to open the canopy to allow the not yet fully ripe fruit to dry should big rains come. But thankfully Dodon received just 1.3 inches, enough to refresh the vines but not enough to cause problems. Then more good fortune, as a late season heat wave pushed sugars to extraordinary levels and tannins smoothed. Brix of 24 and above (the equivalent of 14.5% alcohol) were the norm.

As harvest approached, we observed several unusual fungal pathogens, perhaps in part because of the extraordinary ripening at season’s end. We now know that this problem occurred throughout the region and have started to work with Lucie, our viticulturist, and fellow growers to find solutions to these challenges. We again had to hustle, picking quickly and sorting heavily in some blocks to get perfect fruit into the fermenters. The black widow was just an exclamation point at the end of the growing season. 

Other regions, of course, faced far more significant challenges. Spring frost in Bordeaux, wild fires in California and Provence, earthquakes in Mexico, and hurricanes throughout the Atlantic basin devastated our industry colleagues and the residents of those regions. The human costs leave me speechless. Polly and I, and the rest of the Dodon team, are all thankful to have been spared and for the opportunity to help others where and when we can. 

The story of the vintage reminds me of another story of divine providence. In 1795, Joseph Haydn conducted the debut of his 102nd Symphony in London.  The music itself skillfully blends symphonic conventions into a piece that can be felt intuitively, almost without the music. Like great wine, it offers surprise upon surprise upon surprise as the music evolves, each note fresh with inspiration. But it’s the story of the debut of the 102nd that describes the miracle of the 2017 vintage. Eager to watch Haydn himself direct the symphony from close range, the audience crowded around him, fortuitously clearing an area beneath the balcony just before a chandelier fell on the empty chairs below. There were a few bruises but no serious injuries. 

Like Haydn’s performance, the 2017 vintage was not without bruises, but overall it produced exhilaration and relief. Now, with the wines in barrel and the approach of the Thanksgiving holiday, I am extraordinarily grateful for this vintage and those who worked it. The crop itself was our largest ever, as the 2015 plantings came into production. The new clones of Sauvignon, each distinct in their own way, have me giddy, almost childlike in my excitement to learn their final expression. The Merlots show increasing depth and intensity, the tannins smoother and silkier than ever at the start of the élevage. And of course, this vintage reminded, once again, of the centrality of our relationship with nature in all that we do. 
 

Thoughts from the Barrel Room

With the red harvest complete, and extended macerations underway, I’m starting to think more concretely about how barrel aging will affect the wine and how we can use this understanding to enhance quality. It goes without saying that barrels are not neutral vessels. Aromatic substances in oak quickly diffuse into wine, and some of these combine with or react with substances in the wine to create new flavors. It’s a bit like using spices while cooking. A little bit can enhance the natural flavor of the ingredients, adding complexity and depth. Too much can hide great ingredients, and faulty ones. Oak also contains tannins that have both beneficial and detrimental effects on wine. 

Each of the 40 or so coopers in France have developed their own style that starts with tree selection. The final characteristics of a barrel are related to the species of oak (for example, sessile oak adds depth to fruit flavors), the terroir of the forest where the trees grow (for example, wetter regions tend to grow faster and have looser grain), and the portion of the tree that each stave comes from (for example, staves from the outer portion of the tree tend to have finer grain). Only trees of a certain width will be large enough to make both inner and outer staves from the heartwood, so a cooper that wants to make very fine grain barrels needs to buy larger trees, all else equal. Then each cooper adds its own differentiating touches. Some only cut trees during a waning moon from October to January when the amount of sap is lower than it is at other times. Sap provides nutrients for spoilage microbes and attracts insects, and expansion of sap when it freezes can result in cracks in the wood. 

Once the staves are cut, the climate in the mill yard affects the seasoning process. Wet conditions are associated with slower aging and more microbial activity, which can add new and complex flavors. Staves are routinely aged for two years to dry and stabilize the wood, soften the tannins, and reduce or change flavor substances, but in some cases, there is additional benefit to three years of aging. We have seen barrels that have imparted a green sappy taste to wines, the result of poor or inadequate seasoning. Stave seasoning can also be influenced by the position of the pallet in the yard (wood near the outer portion of the yard seasons faster because it is exposed to more wind) and how closely the staves are packed together. Some coopers rotate their stock and have fewer staves per pallet to avoid this variation. 

Toasting is another source of significant variation between barrels. Most barrels are exposed to fire to allow the staves to be bent and are then toasted to change the nature and quantity of flavor molecules that are released into the wine. All coopers have their own recipe for this process. Some use higher temperature fires for shorter periods of time while others use lower temperature for longer periods. Some coopers use infrared thermometers to toast to a specific temperature while others add sensory evaluation (aroma and color) to judge when the desired toast level has been achieved. Some turn the barrels over the flame more frequently than others. If you have ever grilled meat on a wood fire, you understand what a difference these variables can make in the final product.

Dodon visits Tonnellerie Sylvain in July 2017.

Because of variation in cooper style, it’s often the case that very well-made barrels pair poorly with wine from a single vineyard, or even plot within a vineyard. Many of the best winemakers use an extensive process to evaluate barrels. Several months ago, Polly and I were invited by Eloi Jacob, general manager at Chȃteau Fonplegade, to taste a single lot of 2016 Merlot that had been aged in ten barrels from seven different coopers. We were joined by our consultant Steve Blais, the Fonplegade winemaking team, and representatives from most of cooperages. The tasting was blind to all of those participating, and Eloi had developed a thorough scoring sheet that we used to compare and contrast the aromas and palate of each sample. The differences between the ten samples was stunning. 

At Dodon, we also conduct systematic trials of barrels from new coopers to find the right barrels for a wine. Each barrel is tasted and scored for flavor components at least three times in the first year of use.  As a result, over the past five years we’ve moved from an even mix of fine and medium grain and toast levels to very fine grains, thin staves, and lower toasts. (Unfortunately, the move to finer grains and lower oak impact also moves us further from the species of oak that grows at Dodon, Quercus alba, so it’s unlikely that we’ll make our own “Dodon” barrels any time soon.) For the 2017 vintage, we purchased from only one of the six coopers we started with five years ago. We’ve instead started working with four smaller coopers who are willing to fine tune the toasts, perhaps adding a minute or two to the standard recipe for a specific situation.  

Continuous evaluation and improvement is a very healthy process, one that we embrace fully. We have tasted recent vintages of Dodon wines with most of the coopers that we work with, but to have representatives from all our coopers participate in a single blind evaluation of each other’s barrels would result a much more thorough, critical evaluation. In the end, selecting barrels is a continuous process of systematic trials combined with rigorous evaluative techniques such as the one used by Fonplegade. 
 

August Updates

Dodon Welcomes Seth McCombs  Polly and I are very pleased to introduce Seth McCombs as Dodon’s new Assistant Winemaker. Seth comes to Dodon with 15 years of vineyard and winery experience in Virginia and North Carolina. Born and raised in Lynchburg, Seth started in 2002 in the laboratory at Chateau Morisette where he quickly developed his passion for wine and, like most of us in the industry, learned many parts of the wine business outside his job description. In 2006, he moved to Raffaldini Vineyard and Winery, where he served as Assistant Winemaker, and then in 2011, he became Winemaker at AmRhein Wine Cellars, where he was responsible for a 30-acre vineyard as well as cellar operations. While at Raffaldini, Seth studied Enology and Viticulture at Surry Community College. He was most recently Winegrower at Capstone Vineyards in Linden, Virginia. 

Dodon's new assistant winemaker Seth McCombs (left), Tom (middle), and BJ (right), harvest intern, prepare for bottling. 

All of us on the Dodon team are thrilled that Seth and his family – Stephanie, Arlo, and Maggie - have been able to join us mid-season for the 2017 harvest, and we hope many more. You will quickly recognize them for their outgoing, easy-going spirits and the fastest smiles in the Mid-Atlantic.

We will, of course, miss former vineyard manager Nick Maliska, who has taken a cellar position at Pritchard Hill’s Ovid  in Napa Valley. Nick was with us during a period of rapid evolution and growth.  We wish Nick, Lizzie, Sophie, and Loie all the best in the next phase of their wine journey.

Brief Vintage Update  The bird nets are all up, so our attention is quickly turning to preparing to bottle 800 cases of wine this Friday, August 18. I’m excited about all the wines, especially the 2015 Oronoco and Dungannon. We’re also getting ready for the harvest. The season has been shaping up nicely. Veraison came early, July 20 in Block 40 (Merlot), and went quickly, with superb uniformity across all the blocks. This means that the fruit will ripen evenly and allow us to fully extract all the flavors, always an exciting prospect for a winemaker. The modest rains have kept the wines in peak condition, allowing photosynthesis to work its magic, as have the cooler temperatures with lots of clear sunshine. 

The yields look excellent, just where we expected them. As usual, the Sauvignon is likely to be the first pick, probably the end of August, followed a week or so later by the Chardonnay.  I’m looking forward to having new clones of each of these varieties come into production this year, especially the musqué clones that will add significantly to the aromatic character of the wines. Steve Blais, our consulting winemaker, and Lucie Morton, our viticulturist, are planning to visit the third week in September, just in time for the first Merlot pick. 

So far, so good. Mother Nature has been smiling. We're excited by the vintage.

What are Dodon Soils?

When Polly and I were in Bordeaux a few years ago, we visited Damien Bielle, technical director at Château La Gaffelière. La Gaffelière is a Premier Grand Cru Classé estate that lies on the descending slope below St. Émilion’s famed limestone plateau. It’s adjacent to Château Ausone, one of only four class A château in the most recent St. Émilion classification. La Gaffelière is one of 14 Premier Grand Cru Classé B château.

As we looked up the hill, Damien explained how the special soil of the plateau and the hillside location had produced many of the region’s great wines. When we turned to return to the cellar, we could see Château Pavie, also Class A, to the southeast at the base of the slope where the soil becomes more alluvial and sandy, where one might think the soils would be less likely to produce the stunning wines of the plateau. When we asked Damien how Pavie achieved its status despite the presumed challenges of its site, Damien’s response was matter of fact and utilitarian. “They know how to farm it,” he said. 

It turns out that the four St. Émilion class A chateau – Ausone, Angelus, Cheval Blanc, and Pavie –each have very different soils from one another, and even within their vineyards, there is considerable variation. The key is that the wine growers at each site intimately understand their soils, and they adapt their viticultural and winemaking methods accordingly. 

How are soils classified?

Because soils across the world differ, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization has created a comprehensive taxonomy that characterizes soils based on their characteristics and suitability for agriculture. There are six taxonomical levels. The highest, most general level is the soil order; the most specific is the series. There are 12 orders and more than 15,000 series. With so many series, the characteristics of the soils within each are very similar. 

There is no dominant soil order among the world’s wine growing regions, let alone specific series that are associated with the best wines. This fact alone leads to the conclusion that high quality wine grapes can be grown on different types of soils. Inceptisols are the most common soil order in Bordeaux, alfisols in Burgundy and the Loire, and mollisols in northern Italy, California, Oregon, and Washington, and the ancient wine regions of Armenia. Alfisols, which are good for many agricultural uses, are also found in Maryland and Virginia west of the fall line.  

Dodon’s soils substantially differ from those in other wine growing regions. Termed Marr-Dodon complex soils, they are described as fine-loamy (meaning smallish particle size), siliceous (rich in silica that warms the soil), semiactive (modest cation exchange associated with low fertility), mesic (medium temperature), aquic (Dodon series) or typic (Marr series) (aquic soils retain more water than typic) hapludults (derived from sandstone). 

Hapludults belong to the ultisols, an order found in humid climates and characterized by high degrees of weathering, mineral leaching, and acidity. They age very rapidly, leading to rapid turnover in rock and mineral content. With relatively low fertility, they are marginal agricultural soils that require significant inputs for most crops, but these characteristics make them good candidates for viticulture.  Ultisols have a well-developed reddish clay horizon (horizons are the distinctive layers that can be seen at various depths below the surface) associated with weathered sandstones and resulting in their common name “red clays” in the southeastern United States.

Dodon’s distinctive soils represent a considerable opportunity to make wine that will differ from those produced in other regions, even when the climate and grape variety are the same. The process of discovering what the final wines will be like adds enormously to the excitement and pleasure of our project. I often wonder whether Dodon Merlots will exhibit the power found in Pavie, the finesse in Cheval Blanc, the minerality in Angelus, some combination, or none of these. While we have some early hints, each vintage brings new learning. What we do know is that understanding the nuances of the vineyard soils and farming them with care and precision are essential to the process of discovery.

How do we study soil?

We started by understanding what we mean by soil, which usually depends on whom we are talking with. Engineers, concerned chiefly with the stability of buildings, roads, and other structures, define soil broadly as any material that can excavated without systematic drilling or blasting. In other words, to an engineer, soil is everything above bedrock, which is about 3,000 feet below the surface at Dodon. 

Soil scientists and farmers take a narrower view of soil, defining it as a medium that can support rooted plants. Soils that meet this definition vary in depth, mineral and rock composition, and hydrology. Since most agricultural plants are relatively shallow rooted, only surface soils have been surveyed by the United States Department of Agriculture. Dodon series soils have been characterized to a depth of 72 inches. Because grape vines can send roots more than 200 feet below the surface, they are influenced by soils well below typical agricultural assessments.

Even though soils within a series (Dodon series, for example), have very similar characteristics, there can be, and usually is, significant variation on any given parcel. At Dodon, geologist Bubba Beasley documented this variation using electromagnetic induction imaging to identify plots that differ according to water holding capacity, mineral content, and texture. The resulting image represents a rich mosaic of individual plots, each created hundreds of millions of years ago and transported to Maryland’s western shore uplands. (I’ll describe the origins of Dodon’s soil in a subsequent post.)  

Uploaded by The Vineyards at Dodon on 2014-09-05.

How do we use our understanding?

We used the information from the survey to lay out the vineyard in ways that would maximize our chances of creating complex, balanced wine. For example, Merlot grown on clay soils tends to have more structure and intensity than those grown on sandy soils, where the wines are often described as elegant and finessed. Because we think of Merlot as foundational for Dodon wines, most of our Merlot is planted on plots with more clay where we hope it will have good intensity and structure. 

The information from our survey allows us to precisely farm each plot. For example, areas of the vineyard dominated by sand and gravel have less water holding capacity than areas with more clay. We are a bit quicker to irrigate those parts of vineyard. Because of the leaching, we include calcium and magnesium in our nutrient management program, providing small amounts of these essential elements to thicken grape skins and provide both more flavor and better disease resistance. 

Bubba found that some parts of the vineyard were nearly “dead,” with compacted grey soil that lacked microbial and insect life, undoubtedly the result of fifty years of “conventional” agriculture characterized by excessive use of herbicide and inorganic fertilizers, and by compaction associated with use of heavy equipment. The wines from these areas of the vineyard are weak, lacking the structure and fatness that we want for Dungannon and Oronoco. To restore life to these plots, we’ve been using deep tillage, adding compost and compost teas, and strategically planting deep rooted cover crops to create better soil structure and allow oxygen to enter the soil. 

It’s all, of course, a bit of an experiment, with educated guesses dominating our hypotheses. Because the soils differ from those in other parts of the wine growing world, we can’t merely duplicate their methods. And even after hundreds, or even thousands, of years, the Bordelais are still learning. A winemaker from Pomerol recently told us that he had been working for 43 years to improve one plot of Cabernet Franc that consistently ripened a week or two after the others in his vineyard. His last experiment involved adding river gravel to the soil. Even though he added only a small amount, the result was higher sugar levels but also green notes in the final wine, making him worse off than he had been. If the Bordelais don’t have all the answers for their plots after thousands of years of experience, we can’t really know after just ten how to optimize the wine from any given plot at Dodon. And so we've started on a long and interesting journey of discovery and learning. 
 

The Story of Drum Point

Those who have visited know that Dodon has a rich and varied history. To celebrate this heritage, we’ve chosen historical themes when naming Dungannon, Oronoco, and Drum Point, Dodon’s Collectors wines. Dungannon was Dodon’s horse that won, in 1743, the first recorded horse race on an oval in Maryland. Like the horse, Dungannon the wine, a blend of Merlot and Cabernet Franc, is earthy and boldly structured. Likewise, Oronoco was the opulent, highly aromatic variety of tobacco that was grown in the region. Oronoco the wine, a Cabernet Sauvignon-based blend that will be released later this summer, is correspondingly luxurious, with hints of tobacco leaf aromas.

This spring, we will release a third Collectors wine, Drum Point 2015. Drum Point is a blend of Sauvignon and Chardonnay that readers will recognize from previous vintages as North Slope. Drum Point is named for a “ghost railroad” that, despite a great deal of planning and investment over several decades in the late 1800’s, was never completed.

Planning for the Baltimore and Drum Point Railroad (BDRR) began as early as 1856. It was formally chartered in 1868, at a time when railroads symbolized progress and were being planned and built across America. Had it been completed, the BDRR would have stretched 34 miles from the Baltimore harbor to Drum Point in Calvert County, near Solomons Island. The aim was to provide access to a warm deep-water harbor for the steamboat trade, creating an opportunity to transport tobacco, grain, fruit, vegetables, oysters, and fish from Southern Maryland farms and watermen to Baltimore for sale and canning.

Physical evidence of the project can be found in Anne Arundel and Calvert counties in the form of railroad beds and their trenches. Slated to go through the Dodon property, BDRR beds here run across the western end of the farm. These berms have remained relatively clear of trees as family and friends used them as riding trails over the past century and decades.

This spring we will release Dodon’s Drum Point 2015 in the spring Wine Club allocation, with release to the general public later in the summer. The wine is a blend of 60% Sauvignon Blanc and 40% Chardonnay. It offers complex wheat, apple crisp and stone fruit, a fresh lively palate and a touch of weight. With 125 cases bottled in August of 2016, we suggest pairing it with sautéed chicken with lemon caper sauce or poached salmon. Affectionately nicknamed the “Grand Dame” of Dodon’s portfolio by a dear friend of Dodon, we hope you enjoy this elegant and thoughtfully made wine.

On April 30th at 2 pm, Dodon Wine Club members and their guests are invited to join Polly on a hike to the Drum Point railroad beds. We will gather under the pavilion for a special pre-release tasting of Drum Point after the hike. Club members and their guests are invited to stay for a bonfire until 6 pm. Dodon wine will be available for purchase by the glass and bottle. RSVP here.

Occasional Notes

The growing season officially started Monday with bud break in the Nebbiolo in the experimental vineyard, and a few Chardonnay in block 9 (the third leaf vines) of the commercial vineyard. It’s always exciting, accompanied by both celebration and a touch of angst.

I’ve been asked quite a bit about the effects of March’s cold spell. The short answer is that it delayed vine phenology, reducing the risk that a late season frost would cause bud damage. It also gave us time that would otherwise have been lost to the warm winter to finish pruning.

But as always with nature, the longer answer is much more complicated. False springs, like the period that preceded the March cold spell, are increasingly common, and they can be very disruptive to balance in the vineyard. At Dodon, we’re especially concerned about the consequences on pest control. For example, insect pests like grape berry moth are more likely to survive winter, hatch earlier, and have more generations during the growing season, but natural predators do not necessarily keep the same schedule. Increasing insect species diversity, which we hope will mitigate these pest/predator timing mismatches, is the chief motivation for Dodon’s new cover crop project. It will take a few years to get established, but in the coming years, crops like mustard, buckwheat, cowpeas, and bachelor buttons may be as common as grapevines in the vineyard. As Bob Cannard says, “Half for you, half for nature.”

Our ancestors probably knew much more about maintaining balanced ecosystems than we do now. I’m often reminded about how much wisdom we’ve lost, most recently by a remarkable report published in Nature. Sequencing the DNA from the calculus of 40,000 year old Neanderthal with a dental abscess revealed evidence of salicyclic acid (the active ingredient in aspirin) and Penicillium (the fungus that produces the antibiotic penicillin). While we can’t know for sure, Neanderthals appear to have learned to use the tools at hand as very sophisticated medical treatments, knowledge that we subsequently lost only to rediscover, and then overuse, in the post-Pasteur era.

Winter 2017 Update

Winter is pruning time, and no matter how long we think it will last when viewed from November, the season always passes too quickly. There are lots of competing demands, and sometimes, like this year, it is cut short by warm weather. But like all cultural practices in the vineyard, we don’t cut corners.

Pruning is a critical task that helps regulate vigor and yield for the coming season. At Dodon, we typically remove as much old wood as possible, using a technique known as cane pruning to reduce levels of fungal inoculum. Assuming the vines were balanced during the previous season, this method assures optimal shoot spacing and the number of fruitful buds per vines. Beyond these basic principles, that are lots of decisions to be made. For example, we always wonder whether to leave an “insurance cane” that would provide extra buds in the event of extraordinary cold that can kills buds during the height of winter.

But now winter is merging into spring, and the vineyard team is rushing to finish pruning and tying the vines. The warm weather has made the work pleasant enough, but to be honest, we would prefer biting cold and snow until late March. By keeping the soil cold, these conditions help maintain dormancy and delay bud break until later in the season when there is less risk of damage from a late season frost. We’ve also noticed that cold soil helps synchronize bloom across varieties, a significant work saver in early June when things are busy in the vineyard. By killing eggs and larva, very cold weather also reduces insect pest pressure throughout the season. All told, we’re glad to see a week or two of colder weather in the forecast.

Why do we care so much about Dodon soils?

Grapevines grow just fine in water supplemented with a few nutrients, a method known as hydroponics. Growing hydroponically has lots of advantages. Because it can be done indoors, hydroponics allows perfect temperature control, and it avoids disease pressure often associated with rain, humidity, and insects. Vegetative growth can easily be regulated by adjusting the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the amount of nitrogen in the aqueous solution. It’s little wonder that tomatoes, lettuce and other vegetables, and most commercial marijuana are grown hydroponically.

But many wine growers stubbornly cling to ancient notions of terroir, the idea that the place in which the fruit is grown has a major influence on the taste of the final product. These “terroirists” view themselves as interpreters of their vineyards and not as creators of a wine. They view wines that express the characteristics of the vineyard, such as the minerality often seen in cool climates with limestone derived soils, as ambassadors of “place,” and by association, the vineyard, the farm, and the surrounding community.

There are several ways in which soil can affect the way that wine tastes. The first, and probably the most important, is the movement, distribution, and purity of water in the soil. The amount of water available to plants is determined by the soil’s slope, texture, rock and organic matter content, and depth. Vines in areas with too much water available to them tend to grow vigorously, using energy to produce more foliage than is optimal to ripen the fruit. Indeed, wine grapes tend to do best in conditions of modest water deficit during ripening, and it’s this characteristic that has resulted in the aphorism that vines must “struggle” to produce the best wine.

Soil mineral content plays a substantial role in shaping the characteristics of wine. Minerals in soil largely come from weathering rocks, but they have a much more ancient origin, forming just a few million years after the Big Bang. Most of the earth’s 4,500 known minerals are composed of combinations of just six elements – oxygen, silica, aluminum, calcium, magnesium, and iron. For the most part, the effects of minerals on wine are indirect. For example, in wet conditions, orthoclase feldspar (composed of silica, oxygen, and potassium) is converted to kaolinite clay, releasing potassium that is taken up by vines and transported to the berries. During fermentation, high levels of potassium can precipitate tartrates and reduce acid levels, giving wine a flat, flabby taste. On the other hand, high levels of dolomite (an oxide of calcium and magnesium) compete with potassium uptake, thus increasing wine acids, and it is associated with thick skins, resulting in resistance to infection and more intense flavor in the wine.

Finally, living organisms in soil directly and indirectly influence the characteristics of wine. Microbes – bacteria, yeasts, fungi – provide nutrients in digestible forms to the vines, and they compete with plant pathogens. They digest dead plants and animals to form organic matter that acts as a store for nutrients and water. Many microbes make their way into the fermentation tanks, altering fermentation kinetics and the flavors that result. Larger organisms, such as insects and worms, modify soil structure, allowing better drainage and oxygenation that promote vine health and ripe fruit. Together with the other components of soil, living organisms help to form a dynamic, complex ecosystem that is constantly changing and renewing itself.

Those of you who have toured with us know the effort that we’ve made to understand Dodon’s soil and its origins, the care we’ve taken to select the most appropriate varieties and rootstocks, and the attention we’ve paid to laying out the vineyard to best match the plants with the underlying soil. Despite the potential of hydroponics to make consistently good wine, we’ve chosen the more difficult, potentially more costly traditional methods because we believe that soil plays an essential role in crafting wines of depth, harmony, and balance that reflect the place in which they were grown. In subsequent posts, I’ll describe the story of Dodon soils, where they come from, what they are, and how they make Dodon wines.

Looking Beyond Organic Certification: Part I

I’m often asked when leading guests on a tour in the vineyard whether Dodon is “organic,” or at least aspires to be certified as an organic vineyard. It’s a fair question. In many ways, we fit the common image of organic farmers. On a summer visit, you will find our vineyard team out with hoes, clippers, and other hand tools, carefully cultivating the soil and tending the vines. Regulations governing organic certification require practices that are standard operating procedures at Dodon, such as use of organic composts, mechanical weeding, and use of biological controls for insect pests. These methods are labor intensive and expensive, and they illustrate our commitment to sustainability, ecologically-friendly practices, and a balanced ecosystem.

But the answer to the question is no. Dodon is not, and does not aspire to be, certified as an organic vineyard.

Despite the pastoral image of the organic farmer, the main difference between organically certified and conventional agriculture is the use of synthetic pesticides. Organic certification standards allow use of non-synthetic, and a few synthetic, chemicals, while conventional agriculture does not have any restrictions regarding use of synthetic compounds. Because non-synthetic substances are derived from biological (e.g., Bacillus thuringiensis toxin), botanical (e.g., neem and pyrethrins), or other sources (e.g., minerals such as sulfur and copper), they are considered more “natural.”

But non-synthetic chemicals are still chemicals, and they are often toxic to non-target organisms, including people. Take pyrethrins, a group of six naturally occurring substances derived from Chrysanthemums. These plant extracts have been used as insecticides for millennia, and depending on the specific extraction methods, many are certified for organic use. Pyrethrins are highly effective against a broad range of insect pests. Unfortunately, they are also highly toxic to beneficial insects, such as honey bees and other pollinators, much more so than many synthetic insecticides that target a narrower range of insects.

Because the real differences between conventional and organically-certified agriculture are small, some of the most ecologically-minded farmers have chosen to forego certification. They believe that meeting certification requirements is a diversion from the real objective to produce healthy food in a sustainable manner and may be detrimental to the crop and the environment. When Polly and I were in California last summer, we visited one such farmer, Bob Cannard, at Green String Farm whose produce is served at Chez Panisse, Alice Waters’ well known Berkeley restaurant. Bob is widely known for his visionary, yet radically unconventional, approach to growing fruits and vegetables.

Bob Cannard with students at Green String Institute. If you look closely you will see the vegetables (our half) among the diverse cover crops (nature’s half).

Bob believes that healthy, tasty, nutritionally complete plants are the result of a large and diverse population of microorganisms in the soil. These microbes fix nitrogen, digest carbon containing organic matter, secrete acids that break down rocks into minerals, and protect roots from invading pests. Creating this diversity requires that we renew the soil with a complex diet of composts, shells, rocks, and decomposing plant material from diverse forbs that also provide habitat for beneficial insects. Bob summarizes it with the phrase, “Half for you, half for nature.” Failure to feed nature its portion leads to imbalanced and depleted soil, unhealthy plants, and inferior food.

None of this diversity and balance is required for organic certification. Most of the organic produce in your local grocery store comes from farms that may meet certification requirements, but they are just as sterile as conventional farms. These farms are home to single crops treated with (organic) chemicals such as sulfur and copper that reduce microbiological life in the soils. In the extreme, some organically certified produce is now grown indoors in water supplemented with nutrients, no soil or biodiversity required.

Cabernet Franc vines after the 2014 harvest in Dodon’s experimental vineyard. The vines on the left, treated using standard pesticides as recommended by the extension service, defoliated following infection with Downy Mildew. The organically treated vines on the right held their leaves much longer, but note the telltale blue tint of the copper.

Our trials at Dodon, done in partnership with Virginia Tech plant pathologist Mizuho Nita, convinced me that while we could successfully produce high quality fruit in most years using methods that would allow organic certification, the environmental costs would exceed those associated with a more ecologically-based program that includes judicious use of synthetic pesticides. For example, while copper adequately protected the vines from fungal pests, it required very high doses that would in the long run poison the soil and reduce microbial life. And a combination of pyrethrins and pepper spray reduced Japanese beetle pressure, but we had to apply it three times a week, reducing beneficial insect levels and creating more problems.

None of this discussion should be taken as criticism of the organic farming movement. By and large, it’s a big step in the right direction. But because the methods required for certification did not advance our environmental or winemaking goals, we’ve chosen to look beyond organic agriculture to a more ecologically friendly approach. In future posts, I’ll talk about what we are doing to create a sustainable, balanced ecosystem that is rich in diverse bacterial, insect, and plant species. We hope that these new techniques will result in healthier vines, earlier ripening, and better wine, all with fewer chemicals, organic or otherwise.