Should You Open That Bottle of Wine Today?

It depends. If you believe in the principles of biodynamic agriculture, which acknowledge lunar and astrological influences on soil and plants, then you would first check your biodynamic calendar to find out whether today is a fruit day or a flower day. Wine tastes best on fruit and flower days and not at its best on leaf and root days.

What in the world am I talking about? And what do lunar cycles and star constellations have to do with it? Here is a simple, admittedly too simple, explanation of how this works:

The movement of the moon influences more than just the tides. It affects all living, growing things on Earth. And because wine inside a bottle is a living, breathing organism, the moon’s rhythms influence it too.

Every two or three days, the moon passes through a different one of the twelve star constellations of the zodiac, from Aries to Pisces. From astrology we know that each constellation is associated with an element: earth, air, water, fire. In biodynamic agriculture, the twelve constellations and their elements correspond to four types of days:

Earth element: Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn: Root day

Air element: Gemini, Libra, Aquarius: Flower day

Water element: Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces: Leaf day

Fire element: Aries, Leo, Sagittarius: Fruit day

Biodynamic farmers recognize that each element affects a different part of a plant: roots grow deeply into earth, flowers need air to disperse their scent, leaves store water, and fruit must have warmth (fire) to ripen.

The moon’s passage through a constellation on a specific day and at a specific time on that day determines whether the day is a root, flower, leaf, or fruit day.

And the type of day determines whether the day is a favorable or unfavorable one for planting and harvesting specific crops and even for drinking wine (grapes, after all, being a crop).

When the crop is the root of the plant, such as carrots or beets, then it is best planted and harvested on root days. Fruit crops are best planted and harvested on fruit days, and so on.

How Do I Know Whether It’s a Fruit, Flower, Leaf, or Root Day?

To learn what type of day it is, you can consult the monthly biodynamic calendars in a handy little book called When Wine Tastes Best: A Biodynamic Calendar for Wine Drinkers by Maria and Matthias Thun and published annually by Floris Books in the United Kingdom.

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Maria Thun

Maria Thun

Maria Thun (1922-2012) grew up on a farm in central Germany and spent a lifetime observing radishes. In her early twenties, she began studying Rudolf Steiner’s principles of biodynamic agriculture, which he formulated in the 1920s. To discover whether sowing, plant growth, and harvesting really were influenced by the moon’s passage through the star constellations, Maria Thun experimented with planting radishes. She noted that even with identical soil conditions and seeds, the shape, size, and yield of the radishes varied daily depending on the moon’s position in the specific constellation in which they had been planted. Thun continued experimenting with many other types of plants and concluded that the moon’s movement through the zodiac had the same effect on those crops as it had on the radishes. Based on her observations, she then divided the passage of the moon through the zodiac into four types of days: leaf, root, fruit, and flower, each indicating which type of plant is best sown on that day.

This photo clearly shows that the radishes (a root vegetable) harvested on a root day appear to be the most robust. (Illustration from Wine Folly and Backyard Biodynamics.)

This image clearly shows that the radishes (a root vegetable) planted and harvested on a root day appear to be the healthiest and most robust. (Illustration from Wine Folly and Backyard Biodynamics.)

From her extensive experiments and observations of the effects that planting and harvesting in conjunction with cosmic rhythms have on the quality of fruit and vegetable crops, flowers, and even on animals, weather, and bees, Maria Thun developed a planting calendar. The Maria Thun Biodynamic Calendar has been published annually for fifty-two years and translated into twenty-seven languages. Since her death, both the calendar and When Wine Tastes Best continue to be published by her son, Matthias.

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How Do I Use the Monthly Calendars in When Wine Tastes Best?

It’s very easy! Here’s a picture of the April 2014 calendar:

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 Find today’s date in the left-hand column. (The next column tells you which constellation the moon is passing through that day.) Then slide your finger across the line and look at the colored bars for that date. The bars cover the 24-hour period from midnight to midnight, and the hours are listed along the top of the chart. The four types of days are indicated with colored bars: fruit days (red bar), flower (yellow bar), leaf (blue bar), and root (purple bar).

Again, the best days for drinking wine according to this system are fruit and flower days. I’ve read that aromatic grape varieties such as Torrontes and Viognier are best drunk on flower days.

A dotted line indicates that the time period is not good for biodynamic planting, harvesting, or wine drinking. Reasons for this can be because of an eclipse or the influence of other planetary interactions.

When you look at the calendars, you will notice that fruit and flower days don’t last for precisely one day. This is because the moon moves in and out of the different constellations at different times, so a fruit day might start at 2 AM on a Tuesday and finish at 10 PM on a Thursday.

The times in the calendar are GMT/British Summer Time. You’ll need to add or subtract hours from the charts according to your own time zone.

There is also a When Wine Tastes Best app for the iPad and iPhone, which you can try for free. You can search by month, week, or day, and the app automatically adjusts for your time zone.

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Whether you find these ideas intriguing or completely wacky, at least give them a try! After all, wouldn’t you want that expensive bottle of wine to taste its best at your next dinner party?

Copyright © 2014 by Carol Hartland