Biodynamics, as a viticultural method, is generally not well understood by either its practitioners or its detractors. Detractors complain that biodynamics is rooted in mysticism and has no scientific basis whatsoever and thus no place in the increasingly scientific world of viticulture and oenology. Proponents counter that the biodynamic method established by Rudolf Steiner in the early twentieth century is fundamentally based on scientific facts, and that the results of applying the method are consistent and easily discernible in both the vineyard and the wine glass. This article elucidates the very complex relationship between Steiner's theory and reductivist science and suggests that only by better understanding this relationship can we truly appreciate what the biodynamic method is.

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