<not suffecient for my needs, but a start! -Allan> Domaine Leflaive, now completely managed by Anne-Claude Leflaive, is renowned througout the world for consistently offering some of the finest white Burgundies. What struck me on my visit here is Madame Laflaive's obsession with improving an already admirable production. A few years ago she decided to shift the domaine's vineyards to organic viticulture because she noticed the damage caused by years of chemical treaments. A short time later she again shifted the viticuture, this time to the more radical bio-dynamic system utilized by Lalou Bize-Leroy, Michel Chapoutler, and Nicolas Joly (of Coulee de Serrant) among others. Bio-dynamic viticulture is beyond organic, with such issues as the phases of the moon playing significant roles. Some people think bio-dynamic farming is rubbish, poking fun at the nettle teas that are blended in grounded (sic) 'dynamizers" and dismissing as cultist to eschew chemical pesticides and fertilizers. I understand the moon moves oceans and therefore may have an effect on the sap in the vine, but I have trouble with some of the more farfetched theories behind this practice. However, I am certain of the quality of the products emanating from several of the domaines practicing biodynamic viticulture. I also know when Madam Leflaive served me blind two samples of the 1995 Batard (vinified identically and from the same parcels), one from bio-dynamic viticulture and the other from organic farming, I easily gravitated to the bio-dynamic one. It tasted more precise, and possessed more fruit and length
