Biodynamic Spraying at Domaine Derain
An annotated photo-essay of a March 2021 Maria Thun manure compost spray (CBMT) treatment with Julien Altaber at pioneering Saint Aubin estate Domaine Derain.
Well aware of the limits of my usefulness when it comes to vineyard work, I tend to ask vignerons I already know fairly well on a friendly and / or commercial basis when seeking internships in viticulture. So it was that in March last year I volunteered for a week of vineyard work with Julien Altaber, the successor, since 2016, to Saint Aubin organics / biodynamics / natural wine pioneer Dominique Derain.
I first met Julien back in 2011, wowed by his négociant wines at La Dive Bouteille that year. I’ve featured his wines (and those he produces as Domaine Derain) on just about every wine list I’ve ever had the pleasure to manage since then. As anticipated, he was very understanding about my glaring inexperience when it came to pruning young plantings in Les Murgers des Dents du Chien, or replacing stakes in En Remilly, or attaching branches in Le Ban.
I did prove useful in one regard, in that my driver’s license was marginally more valid than anyone else’s on the vineyard team at that particular time. This entitled me to drive various vans and light trucks up the bumpy hill of Saint Aubin, an experience I have no desire to repeat ever.
When I left, Altaber suggested I return later that month, when the team was scheduled to apply a composte de bouse d’après Maria Thun treatment (CBMT), a biodynamic treatment intended to stimulate the decomposition of organic substances.
Numerous vignerons who practice biodynamics have enthused to me, over the years, about how much fun it is applying biodynamic preparations. I was able to confirm this that day in late March chez Derain and Altaber. I suspect that one reason vignerons and their teams find the procedure fun is there are no quantifiable stakes. Just as the benefits of biodynamic practices evade the measure of conventional science, so do the hazards of its misapplication. On some level, the exercise is unfuckupable.
After dynamizing the preparation and filling up the manual sprayers, the team scattered throughout the Domaine Derain parcels to enact the treatment in a timely fashion. My girlfriend and I joined Carole Schwab, Altaber’s companion, and his then-deputy Paul Gernez in En Remilly, Les Murgers des Dents du Chien, and various parcels of aligoté.
Basically, you lumber up and down the rows with a heavy, sloshing tank on your back, pumping with your left arm as your right arm waves the spray wand in an infinity symbol.
There is a certain, brisk rhythm to be obeyed, probably having to do with the vineyard surface to be treated before the scheduled apéro hour.
On this occasion, it turned out to be Dominique Derain’s birthday.
We toasted a job well done, or a job done in a qualitatively unquantifiable way, at any rate, with a few undisgorged bottles of the champagne he’d helped make chez Valerie Frison in 2012, and a magnum of 2006 Saint Aubin “En Remilly.”
Domaine Derain
1 Rue des Lavières
21190 SAINT AUBIN
FURTHER READING
My mildly embarrassing 2011 blog post about tasting Julien Altaber’s négociant wines at La Dive Bouteille.
An interview with Derain acolyte and fellow Saint Aubin organic vigneron Jean-Jaques Morel.
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