280-acre Quintessa has been farmed organically since its inception in 1989, but with the arrival of estate director Rodrigo Soto, it made the transition to biodynamic winemaking in 1996.
While Soto dubs his first brushes with biodynamic as “anecdotal,” he got the opportunity to see the benefits of these techniques in a previous job with tiered products.
“I got the chance to try grapes that were conventional, organic, and biodynamic," he recalls. "And it was very consistent that biodynamic grapes were making the best wine.”
The biodynamic label often leads to confusion and evokes images of almost mystical processes: Bury a bone in the eastern quadrant of the vineyard beneath the full moon kinda stuff. The allusion makes Soto laugh.
“Unfortunately, communication has not been the best,” he acquiesces, noting that, “when you create that halo of being esoteric or maybe a little bit mystic or however you want to call it, you distract, and you detract from reality.” For Soto, biodynamic means, first and foremost, knowing your land.
“For me, working with biodynamics means a deep understanding of your territory, of your property,” he says. And in Napa, unlike in continental Europe, for instance, where issues may include mold or mildew or pests, the main thing the property demands is attention to fertility.
“That’s an aspect that, it may sound less esoteric; it’s much more pedestrian and much more simple, but it’s a simple thing and in a lot of details where you make the difference in farming,” he says. “If you don’t know how to prune, or you’re over-tilling your vineyard, you are very detached from the moon cycles and the calendar.”
Today, Quintessa is notably working on pruning techniques with Italian consultants Simonit & Sirch, reducing its tilling, and creating architectural structures that promote canopies and thus health, fertility, and longevity.
His overall goal is to help the vineyard age; to cultivate a “sense of place.” It’s for this reason that each year the vineyard releases just one wine that “represents the expression of the property every single vintage through time” – a goal that often means letting the grapes tell the winemakers what they want, rather than the opposite. (Yeah, OK, that sounds a little mystical, but we dig it.)
“Us in the New World, we like flexibility and we like having choices,” says Soto, noting that the estate model preferred by Quintessa is "a very Old World model that doesn’t give you that flexibility and forces your commitment to your property.” And this is true even in difficult years. “It really bothers me when I see certain people that say, 'No, you know what, the potential quality can be compromised, so we’re not taking the grapes this year,'” he says.
