Biodynamic tasting calendar put to test

Saw this on @HeadStoryteller’s twitter feed:

Expectation or Sensorial Reality? An Empirical Investigation of the Biodynamic Calendar for Wine Drinkers
Wendy V. Parr , Dominique Valentin, Phil Reedman, Claire Grose, James A. Green
Published: January 3, 2017

Choice quotes:

The study’s aim was to investigate a central tenet of biodynamic philosophy as applied to wine tasting, namely that wines taste different in systematic ways on days determined by the lunar cycle.



[…] the findings reported in the present study provide no evidence in support of the notion that how a wine tastes is associated with the lunar cycle.

Can’t say I’m surprised at the outcome, nor will I be surprised if this fails to lay the notion to rest.

Very nice. There is a wealth of ready-made data in CellarTracker that could be used to cobble some statistics by date and correlation to the lunar calendar. Disclaimer: I think it’s a lot of hooey, but it’s nice when someone does an actual study.

Well, if you want to use studies to base tasting opinions on, that’s opening a whole Pandora’s box of questions regarding our expectations.

http://m.wine-searcher.com/magazine-article.lml?Xpage_url=2012%2F10%2Fexpensive-wines-taste-better-study&gclid=CIKIqbLJqdECFdC3wAodGkwPdA

http://www.wine-economics.org/aawe/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Vol.3-No.1-2008-Evidence-from-a-Large-Sample-of-Blind-Tastings.pdf

Who to believe?

I remember many years ago a long thread devoted to the possibility that the full moon somehow ruined a night of Grand Cru Burgundies at a fancy dinner. There was a lot of back-and-forth, mystery, biodynamics and even some winemaker scoldings.

During the next full moon, of course, there were a bunch of positive tasting notes on various high level Burgundies. I didn’t post anything, but it did provide a good chuckle.

Well, it wasn’t the same full moon!

:slight_smile: :wink: