Organic vs Biodynamic: What Really Happens at Di Filippo

This is Sotto Voce.

Conversations on Italian wine.

Picture this. Early morning. A vineyard in Montefalco, Umbria. The air is still cold, the fog hasn't lifted yet. And moving through the vine rows, slowly, is a horse.

Mm.

You can see the animal's breath in the cold air. No engine noise. No diesel smell. Just the sound of hooves on soil, and someone walking alongside.

That's Di Filippo.

That's Di Filippo. And the question I keep asking myself: why would anyone choose to do it this way? When there are tractors, when there's equipment designed for exactly this job?

Because a horse tells you things a tractor can't.

What does it tell you?

It tells you how wet the soil is. How compacted. A horse weighs about a third of what a tractor does. It's not churning up the earth. And because you're moving slowly, you notice things. You notice when a vine looks off. You notice where the frost settled.

So the horse is a tool for paying attention.

Among other things, yes.

We're talking today about what it actually means to farm biodynamically. And about whether that matters in the glass. I'm Marco Bellini.

And I'm Elena Marchetti. This is Sotto Voce, episode three.

Let me draw a line first, because I think most people blur these two things. Organic and biodynamic are not the same.

Okay.

Organic farming means no synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers. That's the core of it. You're relying on natural inputs only. In Italy, the certifying body that covers Di Filippo is ICEA.

And biodynamic does all of that too.

Biodynamic does all of that, and more. It treats the farm as a self-sustaining ecosystem. It draws on Rudolf Steiner's agricultural principles from the 1920s. You're not just avoiding bad inputs; you're actively building the health of the whole organism.

Steiner. The philosopher.

Philosopher, scientist, spiritual thinker. He gave his Agriculture Course in 1924, just before he died. It predates modern organic certification by about fifty years.

And this is where it gets interesting to me. Because biodynamics brings in things that science doesn't fully validate. The lunar calendar. The preparations. The horn.

The 500 preparation. Yes. You pack cow manure into a horn and bury it over winter. In spring you dig it up and dilute it, and spray it on the soil. The idea is that it stimulates root growth and soil biology.

Which sounds strange, put plainly like that.

It does. And the research on whether these specific preparations work is mixed. But what's consistent is that farmers who use them tend to be more attentive, more engaged with their soil. Whether the preparation is the mechanism or the attentiveness is the mechanism, I genuinely don't know.

So is biodynamics a system of farming, or a philosophy of how to live in relation to the land?

That's exactly the right question. And I think it's both. Which is either its strength or its weakness, depending on who you ask.

Let's talk about Di Filippo specifically. Because this isn't abstract for them. This is what they actually do.

Di Filippo is a family estate in Montefalco, in Umbria. They've been ICEA biodynamic certified since 2010. Emma Di Filippo runs the estate now, along with her family.

She inherited it and chose to deepen the commitment, not loosen it.

Exactly. Which is worth pausing on. There's a common pattern where a second generation inherits an idealistic operation and starts making pragmatic concessions. She went the other direction.

And the horses are part of that. Percheron breed, I understand.

Percherons, yes. Heavy draft horses, originally bred in northern France. Strong enough to pull through dense vine rows.

What does it actually change? In practice?

Soil compaction, primarily. A tractor can compact the soil to a depth that restricts root growth for years. A horse doesn't do that. You also don't get the tire track problem, where the same line gets compacted run after run, season after season.

And then there's the pace. You said it before: you move slowly, you notice more.

Which is not nothing. The vineyard manager who walks every row three times a week knows things about that vineyard that someone driving a tractor cannot know. Not because the tractor is bad, but because speed filters out information.

What about the lunar calendar? Does Di Filippo use that?

They do. Cover crop management is scheduled on lunar cycles. Harvest timing takes it into account.

And what do you think of that?

I think the evidence is genuinely unclear. There are studies in both directions. What I notice is that farmers who take the lunar calendar seriously tend to plan ahead more carefully, tend to be more responsive to the vineyard's condition. The calendar might be the mechanism, or the calendar might be a discipline that produces attentiveness. Either way, the attentiveness is real.

I find that answer more interesting than a simple yes or no.

Good. Because it's the honest one.

I have the 2018 Sagrantino di Montefalco from Di Filippo in front of me. Let's talk about what's actually in the glass.

The 2018. That's a beautiful vintage in Umbria. Warm summer, good structure going into harvest.

James Felt gave it 95 points.

Which is notable for Sagrantino, because this grape does not make it easy to score well. The tannins are brutal if the vintage isn't cooperative.

What do you notice?

The tannins are present, obviously. Sagrantino always has that. But they're not aggressive. They're integrated in a way that feels deliberate. The fruit is dark: blackberry, dried cherry. There's something a little earthy underneath it, something that feels like the soil itself.

I get that too. And something almost herbal. Dried herbs, like rosemary left in the sun.

Yes. That's very much this appellation. Montefalco sits at elevation, the diurnal range is significant. That herbal quality is the cool nights speaking.

They ferment with native yeasts, right?

Native yeast fermentation, yes. Aged in large Slavonian oak. About six thousand bottles per year. This is a small production wine.

Could you identify it as biodynamic? Blind?

Honestly? No. Not reliably. I don't think biodynamic produces a flavor profile that's consistently identifiable apart from terroir. What I notice is: clarity. The fruit is precise, the acid is balanced. But I'd hesitate to call that biodynamic rather than just excellent winemaking.

That's interesting. Because most of the marketing around biodynamic wine suggests you should be able to taste the difference.

The marketing and the science are not the same thing. Which doesn't mean biodynamic farming doesn't produce better outcomes. It might. But the mechanism is complex, and wine is the end of a very long chain of decisions.

So what are wine buyers actually paying for when they choose biodynamic?

Some of them are paying for the philosophy. Some for the quality signal, because biodynamic certification correlates with attentive farming. And some, honestly, for the story. A horse in the vineyard is a compelling image.

Does the market care how the wine was made? Or only whether it's good?

Both, I think. The wine has to be good. That's the floor. But above that floor, the story matters. People want to know who made it and why. That's not irrational. It's human.

Here's where I want to push back a little. Not on the wine quality. But on how we frame this.

Go ahead.

I think biodynamics is primarily a moral stance. It's about how we treat the land. And the wine is secondary evidence of that stance, not the point of it. When Emma Di Filippo uses horses instead of tractors, she's not doing it to get a better 95-point score. She's doing it because she believes it's the right way to treat soil that has been producing wine for centuries.

I hear that. And I think she probably does believe that. But I'd push back on secondary. Because for a wine business, wine quality has to be the central claim. You can hold the philosophy and make the case on merit at the same time. Those aren't in conflict.

But what if the quality argument is unprovable? What if you can't blind-taste biodynamic and call it?

Then the quality argument rests on different evidence. Not blind-taste identification, but consistent track records. Long-term soil health. The fact that vineyards farmed this way for twenty, thirty years tend to produce more complex, more expressive wines. That's measurable over time, even if it's not identifiable in a single blind tasting.

So the quality case is a long-game argument.

Yes. Which is why the biodynamic vineyards that have been farming this way for a generation tend to be the most compelling. The soil has had time to respond.

Di Filippo certified in 2010. That's sixteen years of biodynamic practice going into this 2018.

Which is significant. The first few years of conversion are often the hardest. The soil is adjusting, the yields can be inconsistent. By year eight, ten, you start to see what the system can actually do.

Maybe I'm coming around on this. Not that the philosophy is wrong. But that the philosophy and the quality case are not separate things. They're the same thing, viewed from different distances.

That's a generous way to put it.

The horse in the vineyard. Maybe it's both: a practical tool and a statement about what kind of farmer you want to be. And those aren't in conflict either.

I think that's right. The most interesting winemakers I've met hold both at once. The practical reasoning and the philosophical commitment. And they don't feel the need to choose.

What do we actually take away from this? If someone is about to open this 2018 Di Filippo Sagrantino, what should they know?

My takeaway: biodynamic certification is the most rigorous form of farming certification available. Doubt the magic if you want. Trust the discipline. Sixteen years of that discipline went into the wine in your glass.

Mine: a farm with horses is a farm that is paying attention. And you can taste attention. Maybe not in a single note, not in a single tasting. But in how the wine holds together over an hour, over an evening.

Give the 2018 time. It's drinking beautifully now, but it has years ahead of it. Sagrantino needs time. This one will reward patience.

Next episode: Elena and Catherine look at the Barolo pricing question. Why do the top Barolo bottlings cost what they cost, and is the premium justified? That should be a conversation.

It will be. Catherine has opinions.

I'm Marco Bellini.

And I'm Elena Marchetti. Thank you for listening to Sotto Voce.