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Before you freak, let me just tell you my theory: you can’t be a great biodynamic wine maker unless you are a great winemaker.

If you’re a great wine maker, going biodynamic* can add a whole other dimension to your wines.  More aromatics, more flavor components, subtle structural and finishing elements.

I saw this again at yesterday’s “Return To Terroir” tasting, an annual event I attend sporadically.  There were great wines and not-so-great.  But this year, everyone seemed to feel biodynamic isn’t a gimmick any more. It’s a growing system for people who are passionate about their grapes, their vineyards and their wines – in a certain way.

Winemaker/farmer Mike Benziger calls biodynamic a natural “energy management system.”  Basically, I think he is successful by paying very close attention to his vineyards and treating them like an integral part of Mother Earth instead of like grape-growing machines.  Modestly, he claims that in starting to farm biodynamically, “the biggest change is in the farmer!”

*Want to know more about what biodynamics is – and isn’t? Jim Fullmer was at this tasting, too, bringing biodynamic bread, cheese, yogurt, etc.  He’s the exec director of the US branch of the biodynamic certifying organization Demeter http://www.demeter-usa.org/

Attractive, easy, complicated enough to be interesting.  No, not your next girlfriend (or boyfriend) but Pamela Sheldon Johns’ new book: 50 Great Appetizers.  Part of the “50 Great…” series published by Andrews McMeel in lively colors and a satisfying small, square shape, under $15.  An opportunity to “taste lots of different little things,” as Pam says.

Incidentally, she’s on a West Coast book tour in March.  And she owns a great B&B in Tuscany, in case you’re in Italy.  Her gorgeous husband leaves breakfast outside your door every morning.  And her flamboyant little daughter is more Italian than American after 5 years in Europe.  What a life, eh?!

Looking beyond the label and the tasting room for info on the wine world?

These three recent books will take you behind the scenes in the industry.

Tyler Colman writes enticingly about Wine Politics.

George Tabor illustrates current closure battles in To Cork or Not to Cork.

And fearless Alice Feiring delves very personally into the question of authenticity in making wine today: The Battle for Wine and Love, or How I Saved the World from Parkerization.

The KINGDOM of Navarra: a blend of super-chef, medieval castles, good to great wines and it’s green, too: 38 windfarms generate 65% of their energy.

An ancient tradition of wines and spirits, and very modern hearty but beautifully balanced red wines, often temperanillo and temp blends.  And a few lyrical sauvignon blancs, too.

We had all this recently with the inventive yet simple food from noted chef Enrique Martinez of Hotel Maher in Navarra – who cooked at Boston’s Estragon Restaurant.

To sample each dish was to uncover surprises in the infusion of mushrooms, sprinkling of toasted chopped nuts, ribbons of herbs.  But most of all it was about texture: perfectly cooked lobster nearly translucent as tender as possible.  And fish with firmness that spoke of being taken off the heat just as it came to the exact moment of doneness.  A meal memorable for the mouthfeel as much as the taste.

For dessert, the piquant Ochoa 2007 moscadel, made from the “petits grains” muscat: aromas of flowers, orange and mint; not too sweet, balanced with a touch of citrus peel and finishing nearly dry.

After that, a sip the ancient custom of a digestif of relatively Pacharan, sometimes poured over ice, the red liquid glowing in the glass.  In September and October, people pick sloe berries and add them to some anisette liqueur they’ve bought.  Tradition says the Pacharan is ready to drink for the July fiesta, when the berries are a red carpet at the bottom of bottle, having given their color and flavor to the liquor.