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Number of states that a total solar eclipse will cross in 2017. The Willamette Valley in Oregon is the only major U.S. wine region that lies directly in the path of totality on August 21. Already in the planning stages are events on east-facing vineyard blocks with great sky views. Considerable amounts of great pinot noir will undoubtedly be drunk. This will be the first total solar eclipse in the continental U.S. since 1979.

Biodynamic farming, a practice that views a vineyard as a regenerative and living organism, was first practiced in vineyards in California.

Answer: False.

The first well known winery to practice biodynamic farming was in France, in the Loire Valley. It's name: Coulée de Serrant. As developed by Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner in the 1920s, and later expanded on by his followers, biodymanics is a holistic system of living agriculture whereby the soil and plants growing in it are nurtured through natural forces. Biodynamics envisions soils and plants as living in a sort of middle world influenced from below by the forces of the earth, and influenced from above by the cosmos. So for example, vines are fertilized using compost created on the farm and are pruned according to the movement of the moon through the twelve houses of the zodiac—all in order to achieve ultimate harmony with the forces of Nature.

“We have 90 wines by the glass, typically about 30 rieslings. We offer our guests two sips of riesling, one off-dry and one trocken, then walk away. More than 50 percent of the time, they choose the one with more residual sugar, and that’s great! We want to rock people’s worlds. Tell them stories about who is making the wine and where it came from, not screaming about sugar levels.”

**— Paul Grieco, owner of New York’s Terroir restaurant, as quoted in Science Makes a Mockery of Tasting Notes by Kathleen Willcox (Wine Searcher May 3, 2021)**

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