Dr Vino's wine blog

Moe Mamtazi emigrated to America from Iran in 1971. He’s made his career since then mostly outside the wine industry. But in 1997, Moe and his wife Flora bought 532 acres of hilly, disused farmland not far from where they live in McMinnville, Oregon. Since then, they have planted 113 acres of mostly pinot noir. They sell some fruit to other wineries as well as making their own wine under the label Maysara.

Moe was disenchanted with much of the produce he found in America when he arrived since he said looked good but lacked flavor. Later he learned about chemicals in American farming and wasn’t thrilled about that either.

One year Lalou Bize Leroy, something akin to the High Priestess of Biodynamics, came to the annual International Pinot Noir Celebration in Oregon. Moe told me that he tasted her Burgundies and thought they were great. He was intrigued why. He listened to her talk about her methods of biodynamic viticulture. Already an advocate of organic farming, pushed him over the edge to biodynamics. (read more on Moe’s transition in his words here.) Biodynamics prohibits chemicals and synthetics and blends in a dose of faith.

In the photo above, Moe holds a cow’s horn, one of several treatments that biodynamics requires. Moe was certified biodynamic in 2005.

Moe has build this multitiered system for “dynamizing” various applications. The liquid, in this case a nettle “tea” (that didn’t taste half bad!), is pumped into the top bowl where it rotates clockwise, then flows into the second bowl where it rotates counterclockwise, and continues down the multiple tiers to the final steeping tank at the bottom. Each bowl is made from the mold of the belly of a very pregnant woman.

The wines are quite good expressions of pinot noir. I’ll add some tasting notes and more about biodynamics in a posting next week where I round up some of Oregon’s biodynamic producers…Stay tuned.

Maysara winery

tags: wine | biodynamics