Cayuse was the first domaine in the Walla Walla Valley to fully implement biodynamic farming in its vineyards.
Farming
In Tune With the Cosmos
From the very beginning, Cayuse Vineyards has been farmed organically—without synthetic fertilizers, chemicals, insecticides or fungicides. “Mistreating the earth kills the terroir, and you end up with soils that are sick or dead,” Christophe believes. “It’s a foundation you have to protect.”
In 2002 Cayuse became the first domaine in the Walla Walla Valley to fully implement biodynamic farming—a chemical-free approach designed to produce healthier soil and food. Based on the research of Dr. Rudolph Steiner in the 1920s, the philosophy focuses on the interrelationship of earth, plants and animals as a closed, self-nourishing ecosystem. Followers use an astronomical sowing and planting calendar.
"I noticed many of the best French producers had been switching from
conventional farming to biodynamics over the last decade, and I became convinced it was a necessary step for us to take,” Christophe says. Cayuse crushed its first biodynamic-certified fruit in the 2005 vintage.
Closing the Circle
Visitors to the Cayuse farm see far more than just vineyards. They find chickens, pigs, sheep and cows, apple and cherry trees, tomato and cucumber vines and rows of corn. Two draft horses—named Zeppo and Red—patrol a lush, several-acre pasture. “It closes the biodynamic circle by integrating animals into the farm, and shows respect for the old ways,” Christophe says.
He hails from a family of French vignerons that plowed their vineyards with horses as recently as 1957, and Cayuse was the first in the Walla Walla Valley to use them for cultivation. Zeppo and Red have been specially trained to perform plowing and other farming tasks, and they work Horsepower and The Tribe Vineyards. “It’s a great privilege to walk behind a horse and feel the earth under my feet as my grandfathers did,” he says.
Horsepower Vineyard includes one acre of Syrah and one of Grenache. Planted in 2008 with tight three-by-three-foot spacing and 4840 vines per acre, it recreates the way vines were planted in some of the most prestigious French vineyards prior to the phyloxera infestation in the 1880’s.
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