From dynamic to biodynamic

When winemaker Steve Lubiana left home from the Riverland in search of a cool climate vineyard site from which to produce world-class wines, he didn't reckon on settling in Tasmania's Derwent Valley, 20 kilometres north of Hobart.

He expected he'd end up in Western Australia's Margaret River, or South Australia's Adelaide Hills. That was the conventional wisdom of the day for young winemakers five years out of Roseworthy College, with a couple of European vintages under their belt.

But southern Tasmania – with its mild maritime climate and long hours of bright summer sunshine – made a big impression on Lubiana and his wife Monique. It was their honeymoon; 1989. With some careful planning and a bit of hard yakka, the couple reckoned it would be the ideal place to put down roots and build a small family business.

And they were right, says Lubiana in typical understatement, the smile on his face somewhat betrayed by relief in his voice.

"We just didn't think it would take this long," he muses, acknowledging 2020 will mark 30 years of living in Australia's smallest wine-producing region.

"My family has been making wines for five generations. Stefano Lubiana Wines wasn't established according to a ten or 20-year plan. It's being set up for the long haul, for 50 or maybe 100 years. Who knows? It's about showing respect for the land. It's not focused on how quick or how big we can grow. It's about working with nature to create a sustainable business where we can make good wines to enjoy with family and friends."

What sets this Lubiana plan apart from many others in the island State is its firm commitment to biodynamics.

Sure, biodynamic viticulture has its roots in the principles of farming and agriculture of a different era – Rudolf Steiner's post-war Europe of the 1920s – but Lubiana reckons it still has a lot going for it in a world facing global warming and declining patterns of rainfall, even in cool climate Tasmania.

"Its principles are driven by sustainability, biodiversity and respect for the earth," he explains.

"This land we're living on has to be managed as a viable working environment that can sustain a whole range of living things. It means creating greater genetic diversity of life forms and reducing monoculture, especially in the vineyard.

There are more utilitarian reasons, too. Many visitors to Lubiana's vineyard cellar door are well aware of the practical issues of sustainability surrounding wine grape production.

"I've not only got a wife and family to worry about, I've got the health and safety of a team of vineyard workers to think about.

"The idea that employees be required to put on gloves and masks to work with dangerous chemicals on a regular basis is not something I want to buy into. I'm just not prepared to put their health and everybody else's health at risk. We need to find environmentally-friendly ways of doing things on our land."

The vineyard's nutrition program is based on rotational mid-row cover-cropping. Fava beans have worked best. Lubiana says resident native hens leave them alone, but will eat up every pea and lupin seed they can find. Under-vine cultivation is carried out by hand-hoeing coupled with the use of purpose-built mechanical weeders and a crawler tractor. Over winter, Baby Southdown sheep become part of a workforce that treads lightly on the complex mix of soil types underfoot.

"Composting is a key process," Lubiana continues.

"That's not just a matter of soil conditioning and improving water retention in our soils, though both are pretty important. Biodynamic compost, along with selected biodynamic preparations and compost teas, create sustainable levels of biodiversity that enhance plant health and allow each vine's natural defence mechanisms to fight off disease. I'm also adding lime to build alkalinity."

Last year saw the on-site production and distribution of 700 cubic metres – roughly 400 tonnes – of biodynamic compost. Created under the watchful eyes of vineyard manager Jarrod Bawden, it's a nutritional brew that includes fish waste, tree bark, wine grape pressings and waste cardboard.

When Lubiana's Granton Vineyard first sprang to life in 1990, it comprised a couple of hectares of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Three decades on, its vigneron still keeps a well-read copy of Steiner's 1924 publication Agriculture within easy reach.

"Steiner really got me thinking about biodynamics, but we decided to establish our vineyard along conventional lines when we planted," Lubiana admits.

"It wasn't until after completion of the 2008 vintage that we decided we'd undertake conversion to certified biodynamic status. We had 18ha of bearing vines at the time, and we were in the process of planning to add another seven hectares of Pinot Noir during the summer of 2010-2011."

Lubiana uses the word 'process' frequently in conversation. It clearly emphasises the fact that the sustainable vineyard operations being practised at Granton are not the result of some religious or philosophical enlightenment that happened only recently.

"Our vineyard operations have been low impact since the early 2000s," he explains. 

One of the most visible signs is a vast composting program, which last year saw on-site production and distribution of 700 cubic metres – roughly 400 tonnes – of biodynamic compost. Under the watchful eyes of vineyard manager Jarrod Bawden, Stefano Lubiana Wines brews a special mix of nutritional goodness from ingredients that include fish waste, tree bark, wine grape pressings and waste cardboard.

"We focus on feeding our soil rather than feeding the vines," Lubiana says.

"If you work hard to get your vineyard and your soils into a really healthy state in terms of their structure and fungal activity, then your vines will be able to access everything they need by themselves. That's far more preferable than using what are effectively mineral salts and simply force-feeding them to your vines.

"We use a range of biodynamic preparations to create our compost. They're essentially bio-stimulants or homeopathic tonics. They help create the right kinds of conditions for beneficial things to happen."

These so-called 'preps' are purchased from suppliers interstate or from Bio-Dynamics Tasmania, the latter also organising field days and workshops throughout the year for interested persons.

Lubiana planned to create his own Preparation 500 on the property to meet his vineyard needs, but that was easier said than done.

"Good quality cow horns are very difficult to source in Tasmania, and there's a significant cost associated with purchasing them. More importantly, when we eventually tried creating our own 500 we found the results were disappointing. The 500 we could purchase was actually better than that we could make ourselves.

"I think the main reason is that we have such low soil fertility and low annual rainfall. In 2018, for example, our rainfall was barely 500mm. That's becoming pretty typical. Rainfall here has been declining steadily since the early 2000s."

Discuss viticulture more generally with Lubiana and you find less dogma and more practicality in day-to-day operations than might be imagined. Spreading lime to ultimately achieve soil alkalinity within a pH range of 7.7 to 8.0 is one of them.

In late 2019, for example, Lubiana added 1.4ha of close-planted, low-cordon Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Each clings to its own steel post for support, forming a plant matrix of around 11,000 vines/ha. Hillside slopes and 1.1 metre row spacings provide vineyard workers with plenty of on-site challenges. Overhead sprinklers, meanwhile, meet irrigation needs while also pandering to Pinot Noir's predilection for high humidity.

Lubiana's vine mix was planted according to 'selection massale.' Overhead sprinklers provide irrigation while also pandering to Pinot Noir's predilection for high humidity.

"We've got to get over this fixation on clones and rootstocks," Lubiana asserts.

"Regardless of variety, there's no single best-performing clone. There's no silver bullet. We've made a conscious decision to plant new vines on their own roots. We don't see any compelling reason to use rootstocks here. It would be much better, for example, if we could plant material ideally suited to growing conditions in this part of the world.

"You'd think after 60 years of viticulture in Tasmania we'd now have half a dozen selections of Pinot Noir, for example, that we'd developed ourselves. Instead, like the rest of Australia, we're lumbered with a very shallow gene pool. And when it comes to selecting rootstocks, it seems many of the decisions made in their favour in the past were made on the basis of increasing vineyard yields.

"We're aiming to improve quality of production, not quantity. It's a process – slow and steady – one we reckon is heading in the right direction."

Lubiana might be wrong, but there's no doubting his efforts have enabled him to establish an enviable reputation for wine quality. Eighteen months ago, he was the recipient of a trophy for World's Best Biodynamic Wine at the 2018 International Wine Challenge in London – for the third time in successive years.

That's process for you.

First published March 2020: Australian & New Zealand Grapegrower & Winemaker, Issue 674