Momento Mori Wines

Gippsland, Victoria, Australia

"I used to be a musician... I started making electronic music and then took the step to do everything with analog gear and not use digital gear at all. I guess I've adapted that philosophy to winemaking." - Dane Johns
Momento Mori is Dane Johns and his wife Hannah, who farm two small plots in Gippsland, Victoria and another small 1.5 hectare plot beneath the Black Snake Ranges in the Tonimbuk Valley. All of their wines scream ‘hand-made’: strict organic principles, small ferments, wild yeast, no new oak or mechanical pumps used on the wines, no fining or filtering and no additions, including no S02 at any stage of wine making. All of them full of character, freshness and purity.
Their other project, Nikau farm, is an expansive property of about 95 acres in the Baw Baw region of Gippsland, Victoria. The property has 2 small plots (0.75h each) of vines on it, both about 27 years old, which have been farmed organically since they were planted. With only 490 bottles produced a year, we got a super small allocation of their white and red. 

 

www.momentomoriwines.com.au

Organic, Biodynamic and Natural wine. What’s the difference?

To understand this concept and its various ramifications, it is necessary to keep something clear in mind: before the 20th century and the spreading of affordable synthetic fertilisers, all farming was organic. When the shift to the use of synthetics and pesticides happened, it became necessary to diversify traditional organic farming from the new modern farming. 


ORGANIC WINE

Simply put, organic farming forbids the use of synthetic fertilisers, synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or genetically modified organisms. The basic requirements are generally specific and engage the farmers not to use any chemical fertilisers and other synthetic products in the vineyard. It does not prevent the vintner from using the conventional winemaking process after harvesting. 


BIODYNAMIC WINE

Let’s take organic farming one step further: Biodynamic. The creator of this agricultural system is the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner, who developed the principles of biodynamics in a series of lectures given in 1924 in Germany. Here lies the foundation of true organic wines, with a strict limit in the use of additives, stringent requirements and at the end obtaining a biodynamic certification.


NATURAL WINE

The previous definitions are usually, and rightfully, associated with it, because most natural wine is also organic and/or biodynamic. But not vice versa!

Natural wine is wine in its purest form, simply described as nothing added, nothing taken away, just grapes fermented. No manipulation whatsoever, minimal intervention both in the vineyards and in the winery. Healthy grapes, natural yeast and natural fermentation, with no filtration nor fining. Sounds easy, right? However, making natural wine is unforgiving and it requires a bigger amount of work than conventional wine. To this day, natural wine has no certification yet.