A new device holds out the promise of adding sulfur to either the vineyard or the vat in a “less deleterious way” than in conventional wine production.

Philip Gourdon of La Tour Grise in the Loire Valley has created a “générateur of SO₂” machine, which produces SO₂ from the addition of “naturally-occurring minerals and/or volcanic sulfur and oxygen”.

Gourdon claims that: “When you bring sulfur from a volcano, biodynamic wine accepts this as part of the process,” holding that this method of introducing sulfur will lessen its deleterious effects.

The machine was on display at the Return to Terroir tasting, held on the second day of Vinexpo 2013. The Return to Terroir organisation of biodynamic growers showed wines from 110 of its members from around the world at the newly-opened Darwin Eco Systeme on Bordeaux city’s right bank, with the new documentary film ‘The Spirit of Wine, the Reawakening of Terroir’ by Olympe and Yvon Minvelle continuously played throughout.

At his presentation ‘Biodynamy, the Truth of Taste’ organisation founder and biodynamic viticulture’s greatest proponent Nicolas Joly asserted what he’s held fast to for over 15 years, that a vine shouldn’t be forced to produce a grape, that “interfering with the outward forces of nature works to kill the grape.