Closed Japanese whisky distillery Karuizawa is a phenomenon. For its entire operational life, it was barely known inside of Japan, let alone internationally. Yet today, its whiskies are recognised globally as amongst the finest and most age-worthy ever bottled and today is one of the most sought-after labels in the burgeoning rare whisky investment market. Bottles of Karuizawa continue to break all the records. Just last month a bottle of Karuizawa 52YO (1960) Cask #5627 became the most expensive Japanese whisky ever sold at auction, a single 70cl bottle selling for £366,000. So, what is it that drives the demand and what qualities do bottles of Karuizawa possess which others don’t?  Like most whisky distilleries, its origins are humble, and the astonishing demand is relatively new, closely paralleling the upward trajectory of the rare whisky market over the past ten years.  Limited production  By Scottish whisky distillery standards, Karuizawa had a short lifespan. Established in 1955 it was operational for only 46 years before being closed in 2001, a consequence of an economic slump domestically which impacted an industry with limited exports at the time.  Although now synonymous with single malts, the first spirit to leave the still in 1956 was destined for blending and this continued until a switch in focus and the release of its first single malt in 1976. At the time Karuizawa was said to be Japan’s smallest distillery and so the relatively short years it was active, coupled with a relatively low capacity to produce single malt, led to an always limited amount of whisky on the market. Moreover, after lying dormant for well over a decade, Karuizawa was eventually demolished in 2016 by its then-owners Kirin
Brewing Co, dashing any hopes of a revival. Karuizawa's unique character  Fitting for such an extraordinary distillery was its extraordinary location on the southern slopes of one of Japan’s most active (category A) volcanoes – Mount Asama. Named after the town in which it was based, Karuizawa is under two hours by train northwest of Tokyo and at the time of writing is the only town to have hosted both summer and winter Olympic Games
events.  The cold snowy winters, summers with up to 80% humidity and cool average annual temperature of eight degrees, creates specific atmospheric conditions ideal for whisky maturation. These conditions have been credited with creating the unique characteristics of Karuizawa single malt – the ability to age gracefully for many decades, whist retaining an abnormally high alcoholic strength and concentrated complex flavour. In terms of raw materials, it is rumoured that The Macallan may have been the inspiration. It is certain
that they sourced the same grain and wood having imported Golden Promise barley
from Britain and Sherry casks from Spain. Distribution  Had it not been for the formation of specialist Japanese whisky distributor Number One Drinks Co. in 2006, it is quite possible Karuizawa would have never entered whisky enthusiasts’ consciousness on the scale it has today. Founded by Marcin Miller and David Croll, it was after a cask sampling session in 2009 and after learning production had ceased, that they bid to purchase the distillery. The bid was rejected but a counterbid to
purchase the inventory was accepted after protracted negotiations making Number
One Drinks Co both owner and distributor of Karuizawa whisky.    Export markets beckoned and soon London-based retailer The Whisky Exchange and Parisian-based retailer La Maison Du Whisky would be blown away by what was presented to them and began bottling casks for an initially sceptical European market. Quality cannot be ignored however and a joint bottling in 2009 by the aforementioned retailers was compared with some legendary Scotch whisky bottlings when reviewed by respected whisky blogger Serge Valentin describing the Karuizawa 42YO (1967) Cask #6426 as “a Japanese masterpiece… once again, this baby reminds me of some old Springbanks. Say of the best sherried ‘Local Barleys’, if that rings a bell to you.” 95 points. Karuizawa-mania ensued, fuelled also by the success Japanese whisky was experiencing as a category on the international stage, most notably Hibiki and Yamazaki scooping numerous ‘World’s Best’ awards and receiving critical acclaim including the famous Jim Murray Whisky Bible award for Yamazaki Sherry Cask 2013 Edition, reported in the mainstream media as ‘Japan beats Scotland’.  The finite supply, increasing demand and sheer quality of the whisky meant Number One Drinks Co had an increasingly valuable commodity. Ever the purist, Marcin is reported to have soon tired of the spiralling secondary market prices and decided to sell off what remained of the reported 364 casks they originally owned and went on to found Japan’s first-ever gin distillery (Kyoto Distillery) trailblazing within a new category with Ki-No-Bi gin.    Presentation You’d be forgiven for being a little underwhelmed by the presentation of some early releases of Karuizawa. A case in point is the previously mentioned Karuizawa 42YO (1967) Cask #6426, which at the time was the oldest Japanese whisky. Now retailing for £20,000 inc VAT, it consists of little more than a glass bottle, white sticker label and thin cardboard box. At
the time of release however there was no precedent for the returns Karuizawa would achieve on the secondary market and at a release price of £250, considered expensive at the time, most were indeed opened and drunk.  Today, the most high-profile releases of Karuizawa are collected and displayed like works of art. The Karuizawa Pearl Geisha’s by Elixir Distillers are a stunning example of how the presentation can entice collectors and send secondary markets into a frenzy. They were a 2019 release exclusive to FINE+RARE and consisted of just 71 bottles of a 37YO Karuizawa and 172 bottles of a 38YO. When these two bottles are placed side by side, the
labels form a mirrored image of a Geisha visually as impressive as the whisky itself.  These were the fourth release in the series so not only were collectors desperate to get their hands on these two but also the previous editions and any future ones.  The future of Karuizawa No one knows exactly how many ‘new’ Karuizawa releases there will be. The remaining casks Number One Drinks sold are said to have gone to three buyers who control the market and have been releasing intermittently since. What we can be sure of is there is very little left to be bottled and we are witnessing the final years of releases after which the number of bottles in the market will only decrease year on year.  The story of Karuizawa is already legendary and it is one which cannot be repeated. For future generations of whisky enthusiasts all that will be left is the ever-decreasing supply and the chapter of Karuizawa in the history of Japanese whisky. In addition to the final releases however, there will be whisky for future generations which is intrinsically linked to Karuizawa.  Although the distillery site was completely demolished, the pot stills that created the unique ‘new make’ were rescued and are already producing spirit which is being laid down at Shizuoka Distillery. There was also one final run in the old distillery site in 2006 by Ichiro Akuto of Chichibu Distillery fame. A 2006 distilled Karuizawa crafted by Ichiro Akuto is something that we hope to one day see.   Browse all available Karuizawa or read more Editorial 

Bottles of Karuizawa continue to break all the records. Just last month a bottle of Karuizawa 52YO (1960) Cask #5627 became the most expensive Japanese whisky ever sold at auction when a 70cl bottle sold for £366,000. So, what is it that drives this demand? We investigate

Closed Japanese whisky distillery Karuizawa is a phenomenon. Find out about the distillery that has produced some of the world's finest bottlings

Karuizawa, Japan's most expensive whisky

Karuizawa: Japan's most expensive whisky

Driving through Napa and Sonoma, the land still bears the scars of 2020. The wildfires that raged through the region have left a long-lasting mark, whether it’s lengthy reconstruction efforts or the stark, charred tree trunks that cover the mountains. But it’s more than that. To an outsider, the fires feel intangible, terrifying yet somehow conceptual. Talking to those that lived through them, however, makes you instantly realise quite how petrifying that season was. The trauma of those flames is still smouldering away.  In 2017, fires hit Northern California on 8th October, however most producers had already harvested. Indeed, the fire even crossed the Kistler property, but their vines helped act as a firebreak. Two years later the Kincade fire swept through Sonoma County at the end of October. But in 2020, the first fires arrived earlier. The LNU Lightning Complex started with what is known as the Hennessey fire on 17th August. Sparked by lightning after thunderstorms, the complex was a weave of 250 different fires that collectively raged through almost 150,000 hectares of the region. The damage was enormous: 1,491 buildings were destroyed and six people lost their lives. While the fire did diminish in size, it wasn’t entirely extinguished until 2nd October, almost a month and a half after it started.  Before the Lightning Complex had fully subsided, the Glass Fire attacked. The blaze started on 27th September, east of St Helena near the Silverado Trail, spreading north to Calistoga and then south and west, towards Santa Rosa. It burned until 20th October, encompassing over 27,000 hectares and taking over 1,500 buildings with it, including numerous wineries. It cut through Eisele Vineyard, across 90 acres of hillside and forcing them to rip up 1,000 vines. Fortunately they’d already picked all their fruit (finishing their harvest three days before the fire broke out, on 24th September). And this was all in the midst of Covid-19.  Wildfires aren’t new in Northern California, but they’re certainly more prevalent than ever before. Indeed, as Cory Empting – Director of Winegrowing at Promontory, Harlan and Bond – tells me, the region’s indigenous people, the Wappo, used to describe autumn as “smoky mountains”.  Paul Hobbs – who has been making wine in “the Valley” (as the locals would say) since the late 1970s – remembers a fire in the 1980s that burned its way along the Silverado Trail. “All it took was a gust of wind,” he says – and one flame turned into something uncontrollable in the blink of an eye. He remembers climbing up on a roof to see the sobering effects of the fire.  Perhaps partly due to this early exposure, fires have always been at the forefront of his mind when picking a site – avoiding rugged, dry areas like Diamond Mountain or Calistoga. And he is exacting with forest management of the sites he works – even on our wander around his Goldrock Estate vineyard, he notices some saplings that are troubling him, and calls over his vineyard manager to take a look, conscious to reduce the risk as much as possible. And he’s deservedly cautious. The 2017 vintage was his first working with Cleary Estate out in Freestone-Occidental, and he paid almost $2 million for fruit that he couldn’t use. The fire itself is one challenge, however vines are natural firebreaks so don’t tend to suffer much direct damage (although the heat from a blaze can sometimes scorch vines). The real threat, however, is in the air – smoke. But the science of smoke taint is complex, and poorly understood. Producers can send samples to laboratories to be tested for the compounds responsible for the taint (guaiacol and 4-methylguaiacol) but the exact level of perception isn’t known. These compounds also naturally occur in some varieties, eg Syrah, and come from oak barrels (in particular the toasting process).  Of course the impact of smoke is dependent on proximity to the fire, the intensity of the smoke, elevation and the wind. Hobbs explained how in 2020 much of the smoke from the Glass Fire stayed north for several days, but then the wind shifted and sent it south to the Bay Area. As smoke travels, and ages, the volatile compounds also degrade, so there is also a significant difference between the impact of “fresh” smoke, versus what Hobbs describes as “atmospheric” smoke. The latter may look bad, but it’s unlikely to hold significant taint, whereas if you’ve got fresh smoke, it’s “game over”.   Lots of producers do micro-ferments to look for smoke taint, testing to see if it’s worth the expense of picking the fruit and making the wine – however that’s also not a sure-fire way to know if you have smoke taint. The nature of these compounds means that they can lurk, undetectable in a wine, and emerge in bottle as hydrolysis occurs. “That’s why it’s so insidious,” Hobbs says.  If you’ve got smoke-tainted fruit, the options are limited. The compounds are concentrated in the skins, so the aim is generally to minimise skin contact. Indeed, some producers made rosé in 2020, having picked earlier, with higher acidity than normal. Otherwise you can use reverse osmosis or spinning cone (both expensive processes that are used for de-alcoholisation), or carbon fining – or a combination of all of the above – to try and strip out the smoky flavour. The result, as Mark De Vere MW at Robert Mondavi said of trials they’d done, it generally didn’t work, but if it did, “It took so much else out.” (Robert Mondavi ended up making almost no 2020 wine.)  *  Read anything about 2020 and there is a cacophony of opinion. “Everyone handled the vintage differently,” Cate Kistler of Occidental told me. They picked on 18th August, not in response to the fire, but because that was when the first fruit was ripe. They didn’t do any micro-ferments or send samples to labs (“We’re not data-crunching people,” Kistler says). The cost of picking was, for them, “a drop in the bucket” in comparison to farming the vineyards the rest of the year, so they tried to do what they could.  “It was going to be either Occidental, or nothing,” she said with a shrug. They took their time, committing to making every decision as if it was a normal year, finishing on 6th September just as the Labor Day heatwave hit. They didn’t use everything they picked, but they made all five of their single-vineyard wines – and the 2020s we tasted are glorious.   Some, like Colgin, didn’t make any wine at all, while many producers made around 40% less (such as Williams Selyem and Peter Michael). Many of the 2020s that will be released were picked before the fires struck. Cathy Corison had all her fruit safely in the winery more than two weeks before the Glass Fire hit, but the challenge was to keep the smoke out of the winery. She bought industrial grade air filters to shield her ferments. “They’re beautiful,” she says with a quietly proud smile.  At Dalla Valle, Maya Dalla Valle doesn’t pretend that it was an easy year, but she’s pleased with the wines they made (all with fruit picked before the Glass Fire). As ever, these are wines that speak of their year – which wasn’t just the fires, but a hot, dry year that (along with a block that was being re-grafted) cut their crop to a mere 2,700 cases in total. At Dominus, they did micro-ferments after the Lightning complex, and had picked their last row of fruit on the morning the Glass Fire broke out.  Steve Matthiasson – the leading viticulturalist who also has his eponymous label with his wife Jill – told me how it was set to be “an epic season” before the fires hit. He highlighted how the smoke meant there was less UV light reaching the grapes, and that meant the fruit wasn’t as phenolically ripe. They pick early, so had started harvest 10 days before the Glass Fire broke out. The Cabernet Sauvignon in their Phoenix vineyard was still out, but they managed to pick it the morning after the fire broke out, before the smoke was able to take effect.  Most who picked early are in agreement that the hot, dry conditions were in their favour. Promontory saw only eight inches of rain, versus the 30 of a normal year. But that hydric stress helped them – it meant the crop was small and the vines shifted to ripening the fruit earlier, so even though they picked on 22nd August they had no pyrazines. As Will Harlan says, in some ways, “The stars aligned”.  The 2017 vintage might have prompted people to start thinking about climate change, but 2020 was a real wake-up call for the region. It prompted Martin Reyes MW to try and create a community around climate action. Eventually, working alongside Anna Brittain, he founded Napa RISE (standing for Resilience Innovation Sustainability Empowerment), a climate and wine symposium that first took place in 2022 (with the 2023 symposium currently underway). It’s early days, but they’re “trying to build into the DNA [of Napa RISE] this notion of action”. He’s keen to avoid a conference focused on discussing concepts, but an industry convention that drives change.  One part of that conversation is inevitably fire – and a session last week focused on forestry management. “The relationship with fire we have is complicated – but it can be a healthy relationship,” Reyes tells me.   Controlled burning has long been a part of life for indigenous peoples – both in North America and Australia, where wildfires have now become a threat. In the US, controlled burning was officially banned in 1911 when the Weeks Act was introduced, but California is gradually realising the need for its reintroduction.  “Agroforestry was happening before conservation took it off the table,” Empting (of Domain W. Harlan) tells me. He talks about how when the previously evicted Miwok people were allowed to return to Yosemite, they were horrified by what they saw – where “conservation” had destroyed the ecosystems. For native peoples, seasonal work like controlled burns was a way of life – seen as their responsibility to the land. But it was a responsibility that colonialism robbed from them, and didn’t take on.  At the Pepperwood Preserve, native peoples do controlled burns. Empting visited to explore the practice and see if it’s something they could take up as part of their stewardship of the land. The challenge today is the paperwork – and politics. Permits are difficult to obtain, the fire department is reluctant and has to be involved, and then there are the neighbours to contend with.  Hobbs highlights that it’s not just that there aren’t enough controlled burns, but that manmade structures have taken over swathes of land – and they burn hotter, leading fires to rage in less predictable ways.  Of course, as with 2017, the 2020s are already being marred by rumour and reputation of a smoke-tainted year. The reality is so much more complex – and, although I haven’t tasted enough to make pronouncements on the vintage, there are some brilliant wines. Of course you’ll need to choose carefully, but for top producers there is nothing to be gained by releasing wine that is anything less than flawless.  While the fires have left scars, the land’s capacity for renewal is remarkable – with vibrant vegetation flourishing in amongst the scorched trees. The 2020 vintage wasn’t the first to see such challenges and it won’t be the last. The soils can recover, and so can the people, but a sustainable way to manage these threats is essential to long-term survival. Read more about California or browse all California listings

Wildfires have become a yearly occurrence for Napa and Sonoma – but what is their impact, and how can producers handle the effects? Sophie Thorpe spoke to some of Northern California’s leading producers to investigate the issue

Talking to Napa and Sonoma’s top producers about wildfires and the 2020 vintage – Paul Hobbs, Harlan, Kistler, Occidental, Promontory, Mondavi and more

Wildfires and the 2020 vintage in California

The way the wind blows

A couple of years ago, I wrote a book called Time Tamed. In retrospect it is an ambitious title. Even at the time I realised as much, describing man’s efforts to tame time as being a task as Sisyphean as it is Canute-like. Humankind invented time to make sense of the world around us. It can be argued that an understanding of time – and the ability, however rudimentary, to track it and act according to it – is right up there alongside the ability to fashion tools and communicate using spoken language, as one of the characteristics setting humans aside from the other species with which our planet is shared. In the beginning at least, the extent of our relationship with time was a cognitive reaction to phenomena that permitted the prediction of cyclical seasonal events such as the migration of animals, and later forecasting the effect of variations in terms of temperature and daylight hours on the flowering and fruiting of crops.   The triumph of human intellect, and the beginning of our species’ march to its position at the apex of life on our planet, was to make conscious use of this intellectual edge that allowed us to benefit from the recurring patterns of events foretold by observation of such astronomical phenomena as the rising and setting of the sun, the waxing and waning of the moon, and the lengthening and shortening of the diurnal span. Lunar phases repeat themselves in a cycle of 29½ days; the tropical year as measured, say, from winter solstice to winter solstice (when the day is shortest and night longest) is approximately 365¼ days. The interaction of the solar and lunar calendars, providing, respectively, the year and the 12 months in it, gave us the framework upon which to build civilisation. “If time was conceived as the precise measure of an ordered succession of states, it should come as no surprise to find that its first criterion of measurement in every known civilization should have been the movement of the stars (which is both movement and return, in other words a ‘constant periodical appearance’)”, wrote Umberto Eco. He next posed the rhetorical question: “Even if there were nothing more to time than this, it would still be interesting to ask why, for so many centuries, men measured out the years, the months, and the days, but came so late to measuring hours and minutes. The main stumbling block was the need for mechanically precise instruments to measure them.” Calendars of varying degrees of sophistication have been in use for millennia. In my book, I wrote about a series of 12 fire pits in Scotland that – in conjunction with the known location of sunrise through a mountain pass on the morning of the winter solstice – functioned as a calendar in the Mesolithic period, 10,000 years ago. Compared to that, widely available accurate timekeeping is only a relatively recent phenomenon. Had you asked a medieval peasant the time, he would have probably told you what season it was and, as recently as the mid 19th century, time was measured according to local meridians that gave a local solar noon. Britain, at the time the world’s preeminent industrial power, only got its first real taste of unified national time in 1851, when millions visited the Great Exhibition, travelling from all corners of the Kingdom by trains that ran to a single national time. But in the last couple of centuries the pace has hastened: we have become, as Eco put it, “children of a clock civilization”, and I am sure there are those who would argue that it is from there that many of our problems have arisen.   The industrialisation of time was of particular interest to Karl Marx. “The clock is the first automatic machine applied to practical purposes,” he wrote to Friedrich Engels in 1863, “and the whole theory of production of regular motion was developed on it.” Even though abstract, time had become the ultimate economic commodity. Life became lived according to the maxim ‘time is money’ and with a Gradgrindian myopia we have concentrated on ever smaller divisions of time until we have become not children but slaves of the clock. Time was never tangible, but in the past it linked human experience to the cosmos through the tracking of solar and lunar cycles. The division of time into units that are independent of astral cycles has distanced us from the natural rhythms of life. Division of time into small units standardised around the world has facilitated the synchronisation of activities that enable us to live in our modern world of ‘just-in-time’ production, conurbations with populations of millions, and a network of integrated transport systems that allow us to travel from one side of the world to the other well within the span of a single day. It has taken the recent and as yet unresolved upheaval wrought upon our carefully organised world by the COVID-19 pandemic to reveal the humbling fragility of the system by which we live and regulate our lives. Moreover, one could argue that it is the application of monetised time that is responsible for the ravages that we have perpetrated on our planet in pursuit of our industrial goals. But before we blame the rise of the timepiece for the ills of the world, there is an aspect to watchmaking that can enable us to reconnect with the cosmos in a way that is familiar to those conversant with the world of biodynamic winemaking. So, when the editor of FONDATA suggested biodynamic winemaking as the prism through which to view watchmaking, I was intrigued. Once upon a time, a long time ago, I did work in the wine trade. However, we parted company during the 1980s, some time before biodynamic winemaking became what I believe is called ‘a thing’. Obviously, all readers of FONDATA understand the basic principles of biodynamics, but I needed to undergo a quick crash course in what is just one of the legacies of the quite extraordinarily colourful and at times controversial Rudolf Steiner; the late 19th- and early 20th-century Austrian philosopher, social reformer, writer, educationalist, editor, architect, spiritualist, scientific spiritualist, mystic, Goethe superfan, campaigner for the independence of upper Silesia – and much more besides. He came up with everything from a new, quasi-religious movement called ‘Anthroposophy’, to a new approach to medicine; a new artform, ‘Eurythmy’, to a new form of agriculture, ‘Biodynamics’. Steiner turned his fecund and agile mind to the problem of agriculture in the early 1920s and addressed many of the concerns that we are still grappling with a century later, advocating a sustainable ecologically-oriented approach to farming that eschewed chemical pesticides and fertilisers in favour of natural alternatives and conducting agriculture based on an astronomical and astrological calendar. Steiner is memorable because he could enliven even the relatively practical activity of growing things with woo-woo mumbo jumbo of a level to which even Gwyneth Paltrow can only aspire: for instance, burying manure in a cow horn over winter and then exhuming it; or controlling infestations of field mice by sprinkling fields with the ashes obtained by burning the skin of a “fairly young mouse” obtained “at a time when Venus is in the sign of Scorpio”. And yet, such was the power of his way of thinking that it would be wrong to characterise him as a total crank: Steiner was apparently taken seriously by Hitler as a threat to National Socialism.  But back to wine. Prima facie, there is little to link the joyous celebration and bounteousness of viniculture with the mechanical slicing of hours into minutes, into seconds into milliseconds. However, to view watchmaking as being just about the business of telling the time is to underestimate what is in my opinion one of the most engrossing areas of human ingenuity and creativity, where science, mathematics, mechanics and art meet. I like to think about watchmaking as being connected to the detection and calibration of rhythms and patterns … biodynamic farming is all about rhythms and patterns, especially those of the lunar calendar. In his writings, there are times when Steiner could be writing the script for Star Wars – when he talks of entering into “the forces that regulate growth, crucially the ‘fully-evolved Moon-force’”.  The Biodynamic Association uses less picturesque language to summarise the approach, saying that the philosophy of biodynamic farming is founded on “the influences of the moon, planets and constellations on plant growth”. “Each month the moon moves through all twelve constellations of the zodiac in turn. This is referred to as the moon’s sidereal cycle and forms the basis of the biodynamic calendar. Although the waxing and waning (synodic) cycle is the most well-known lunar rhythm, it plays a small part in this calendar.” The indication of moon phases has long been a feature of watchmaking, and even if knowing whether one is living under a waxing gibbous moon is not of primary importance to most of us, the function is undeniably decorative when artistically transferred to a watch face – the moon disc, often decorated with a background of stars, making a complete rotation once every 29½ days. Watches with more advanced astronomical functionality feature sidereal time as well. And this year, the long-established watchmaker Jaeger-LeCoultre demonstrated that it is capable of getting seriously cosmological. To celebrate the 90th anniversary of its famous Reverso model, it released the world’s first four-sided watch, the Hybris Mechanica Quadriptyque. As its name suggests the Reverso flips over to reveal its back. Initially conceived as a protective measure, more recently the back has been used to display other information (another time zone for instance). Now, the cradle in which the watch sits on the wrist has also been mechanised to offer two further planes for display – much in the way that one can connect multiple screens to a single computer rather than having to be constantly opening and closing windows. And Jaeger’s watchmaking wizards have turned faces three and four into a banquet of lunar information.  On the interior face of the cradle there are three displays giving the synodic cycle in the northern hemisphere, the draconic cycle (the height of the moon) and the anomalistic cycle (apogee and perigee, when the moon is respectively furthest from and nearest to the Earth), while the fourth side of the watch gives the synodic cycle in the southern hemisphere.   It sounds like an observatory on the wrist and according to the makers: “the Hybris Mechanica Quadriptyque can predict the next global incidence of astronomical events such as supermoons and eclipses – the world’s first wristwatch to provide such a deep reading of the cosmos.” I imagine even Steiner would be impressed especially as in biodynamic circles cosmological connections are crucial. Biodynamic agricultural activity is governed by knowledge of the behaviour of celestial bodies: ascending moon days favour certain agricultural activities while other tasks are better performed on descending moon days. Eclipses, apogee, perigee, and new moons all have their associated agricultural messages for the biodynamic farmer.   “It’s connected into the cosmos,” explains Philippa Hegarty of Hegarty Chamans, a vineyard in the foothills of the Montagne Noire in the Minervois. “We find an explanation that people respond to is; if the Moon has such a strong tidal influence then it can certainly move sap up and down a vine and that’s what we work with at different times of the year.” Providing timing of the movement of the tides is another function that the mechanical clock or watch can perform; indeed it is one of the oldest, predating the minute hand, the second hand, the wristwatch and even the pocket watch. The provision of times of high tide by a mechanical timepiece can be traced back to the 14th century and the famous Astronomical Clock designed by Richard of Wallingford, Abbot of St. Albans – which as well as showing the fixed stars and charting the movements of the sun and moon (complete with ecliptic nodes – another important feature for biodynamic winemakers) gave the times of the tides at London Bridge.   In fact, the technical leap forward accomplished by clockmakers in the 14th century rivals that of computer networks in our own time: at the end of the 13th century time was still being told by clepsydrae (like an hour glass but with water instead of sand) and by the middle of the following century, man was mapping the cosmos using mechanical machines of unimaginable complexity. If Giovanni de Dondi’s Astrarium of 1364 looks a little like a lunar landing module, then that was not the only thing it predicted. About a metre high and standing on protruding feet, the Astrarium featured seven panels with dials that showed the movements of the sun, moon and the then-known planets: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Further dials indicated dates of fixed and moveable religious feast days, the intersections of the solar and lunar orbits, and time of sunrise and sunset. In comparison, the 24-hour clock seems prosaic, almost otiose. Another common feature of these miracle machines of the Middle Ages was the zodiac. Rather than being relegated to the horoscope section of the tabloid press, astrology was as much of a science as astronomy, and a medieval megaclock could not take itself seriously without a dial or two depicting the signs of the zodiac. The celebrated Three Kings Clock of Strasbourg Cathedral was no exception. As well as its astrolabe dial, ecclesiastical calendar, carillon mechanism that filled the air with religious music, and the automata that replicated the nativity, an illustrated panel linked signs of the zodiac to body parts, connecting human health with the movements of the celestial bodies, thus indicating propitious or hazardous times for that key medical procedure of the times: bloodletting. The influence of the zodiac constellations is an important part of the biodynamic playbook. “Since ancient times the twelve zodiac constellations have been associated with each of the four elements: earth, water, air and light,” observes the Biodynamic Association. “Three constellations are connected to each element, and each element is related to a part of the plant: thus, Earth – root; water – leaf; air – flower; fire – fruit.” “For example, for sowing or harvesting carrots, an earth – root day should be chosen; for lettuce, a water – leaf day; for beans and apples, a fire – fruit day; and for flowers and broccoli, an air – flower day.” As the example of the Jaeger-LeCoultre Hybris Mechanica Quadriptyque shows, thanks to the technological advances that have accrued during the last 20 or 30 years, the miracle of modern mechanical watchmaking is that it is able to miniaturise cosmological functions and place them on the wrist. Recent years have seen some truly spectacular wristwatches enter the market. Patek Philippe’s double-faced Sky Moon Tourbillon is regarded as one of the trophies of modern watchmaking: featuring minute repeater with ‘cathedral gongs’; tourbillon; perpetual calendar with retrograde date hand; day, month, leap year in apertures; hours and minutes of mean solar time; moon phases; and on the reverse, moon-focused watch face, sidereal time, sky chart, and phases and orbit of the moon. Van Cleef & Arpels caused a stir when it released a watch that condensed the workings of a planetarium onto the wrist with a watch charting the movement of the five planets visible to the naked eye from Earth: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn; each planet orbiting on its own disc in its real rotation time. Blancpain, meanwhile, has tackled the notoriously complex lunisolar Chinese calendar to create a watch that displays the ten celestial pillars, the five celestial elements, the phases of the moon, the animal associated with the year and the date as given by the Gregorian calendar. I am neither watchmaker nor winemaker, but given the approaching centenary of Steiner’s 1924 series of agricultural lectures which gave birth to biodynamics, now might be a propitious time to consider a mechanical timepiece that displays the cosmological information pertinent to biodynamic viticulturists and farmers. This article was originally published in FONDATA, Issue Two.

Author and writer Nicholas Foulkes reflects on how modern horological advances are resulting in some exquisitely made timepieces that look to display increasingly complex celestial information pertinent to a surprising demographic – biodynamic farmers.

Delve into the intricate connection between humans and time. From celestial rhythms to watchmaking marvels, uncover the ties that bind.

Exploring Humanity's Complex Relationship with Time

Celestial Movements 

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As a result of the quantity requested for delivery, we recommend using Third Party Shipping. If you proceed with our Shipping, there may be a delay to the selected ship date.

As a result of the quantity requested for delivery, we recommend using Third Party Shipping. If you proceed with our Shipping, you will not be able to define a ship date, and we will get in touch with you to arrange delivery.

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Due to the quantity requested for collection, there may be a delay in meeting your requested collection date.

Due to the quantity requested for collection, it is not possible to define a collection date at this stage. Our team will liaise with the warehouse and contact you directly to confirm a suitable pick-up date.

This item has been listed by a collector and is available for storage or immediate delivery

For orders with a high value, we recommend shipping with a third party carrier. Items shipped with third parties will remain in banded OWCs.

Due to the quantity requested, you won’t be able to select a collection date. Please submit your request, and we will liaise with our warehouse and confirm the collection date with you directly.

Due to the quantity requested, you won’t be able to continue the purchase. Please select third party, or change the quantity (maximum 48 is allowed).

Due to the quantity requested, you won’t be able to select a shipping date at checkout. Please submit your request, and we will liaise with our warehouse and confirm the delivery date with you directly.

For up to 499 bottles in storage, the rate is 39¢/bottle per month or a $50 minimum monthly charge (this covers up to 142 bottles). For over 500 bottles, the storage rate is 35¢/bottle per month.

Storage is charged at HKD 40 per 12-bottle case per month. A minimum monthly storage fee of HKD 80 applies, covering up to 24 bottles.

Standard storage rate

By selecting third-party shipping, you will take full responsibility for all aspects of legal compliance and authorize Vinfolio to transfer the items to the party specified in your instructions. Items shipped via third parties will remain in their original packaging.

Collection times are between 8:30am - 12pm & 1:30pm - 4:30pm, Monday to Friday. Wines at Will Call, that are not picked up within 10 business days, will be transferred to storage and subject to a $1.50 per bottle stocking fee.

Items to be sourced and shipped to our state-of-the-art fine wine storage facility for the best possible safe-keeping where you can arrange collection from our warehouse address in Napa.

Will Call (Napa)

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We're in the final stages of upgrading to our brand-new trading platform. As part of this transition, we're currently migrating all customer-owned inventory to ensure a smooth and seamless experience.

Our new and improved platform will be ready for you on Friday, April 4.

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About description for demonstration purposes

shows all the items you currently store with us. These items can be sold, delivered or transferred.

At {shortName}

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represents all the wines that are in your possession and have been consumed.

This is the price you paid for this item.

Cost price

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The lowest price you're willing to sell at.

shows all the items that you have pre-ordered, including en primeur wines, and all the items on your watchlist.

Futures

You can set a sell price on items you're selling based on a % of current unit net value.

You can set a market price on items you're selling based on a % of current unit net value.

shows all the actions that you have taken on items in your Portfolio.

groups every action by type - Purchase, Sale, Delivery, and Inbound Transfer - so it's clear at a glance what happened to each item.

History

shows all the items that are currently in transit to or from {shortName}.

In transit

Local delivery is free for orders over HK$1,800 (to a single location). For orders below this value, delivery is HK$150 for up to four cases and HK$50 per case thereafter.

Shipping starts from €15 within Italy and €45 to Switzerland and the rest of Europe for up to 48 bottles (75cl). Costs vary by destination. Larger shipments can be quoted on request.

The date shown below is when your order will ship from our local warehouse. Your final delivery date, along with full tracking details, will be provided once our team has processed your request.

You can arrange collection from our Retail store on 22nd Floor, 8 Wyndham Street, Central Hong Kong.
Collection times are between 9:30am-13:00 and 14:00-18:00pm, Monday to Friday. We are closed on public holidays.

You can arranged collection from our warehouse STI INTERNAZIONALE SPA, on Viale del Lavoro, 57, 37051 Bovolone, Verona.
Pick-up hours are between 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM and 1:30 PM to 5:30 PM, Monday to Friday. We are closed on public holidays.

This is the current estimated market value for this item.

Manually set prices will be overwritten. Already listed wines are not affected.

Updates all unlisted wines to current market price.

Set all at market

represents all the wines you currently have in your Portfolio that aren't stored with us. Press the

My cellar

Name

Net price

New portfolio available

New portfolio

You do not have any invoices at this time.

shows all the items from your Portfolio that are currently on the market.

On sale

shows all the items you currently have in your Portfolio. You can perform individual actions on them from this page.

Overview

shows any items that are currently awaiting user action.

Pending

This is the dynamic estimated value of the item with trading margin removed.

This is the amount of profit you will receive if your listing sells.

Pre-authorised payments enable automatic transactions on your behalf, ensuring seamless and hassle-free payments. This allows recurring charges, subscriptions, or scheduled payments to be processed without manual approval each time.

The number of cases you wish to place on sale

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Before you request delivery, you can adjust the quantity for each item in your selection below.

* At time of sale a 15% trading fee will be deducted from the final sale price.

Total estimated value*'

The fixed custom price you wish to sell each item for.

Split into {caseSize} individual {bottleSize}cl bottles.

Title

shows all the items you currently store with us. These items can be sold.

Available for sale — items stored with {name} eligible to be listed on the marketplace.

Profile

This item is at Vinfolio, available for storage or shipping. For more information on shipping and handling visit vinfolio.com/shipping

This item is at FINE+RARE HOME Hong Kong, available for delivery or local pickup. Most Hong Kong deliveries can be made within 3 working days, an exact date will be available when arranging delivery. International deliveries have longer lead-times, please contact us for details.

Wines sold en primeur will be released from the producer after bottling, typically 18 months after the so-called campaign ends. Upon arrival your wine will be stored at Vinfolio in our temperature-controlled warehouse until you decide to take delivery.

We will source this item at the guaranteed price from our network of suppliers and arrange expedited shipment to FINE+RARE.
 The lead-time depends on many variables, but 2-4 weeks is typical for expedited sourcing.
 Once your order is confirmed, we'll keep you updated on its ETA.
 Every item is checked on arrival by our expert team, with photographs available on request (please note that charges may apply).

When a wine is on "pre-arrival", it means that we have a confirmed order on the bottles from our supplier and we are simply waiting for the winery or distributor to ship the wine to us. The delivery timeframe for pre-arrival wines varies significantly, depending on where the wine is coming from. We will notify you once they arrive at our warehouse and, at that point, you can decide to arrange shipping or list them for sale.

Brittain

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