A Full Body or a Full Moon? How the Lunar Calendar Might Affect Wine
Posted on Thu 21st Mar 2013 at 12:02
It may sound far-fetched, but some people genuinely believe that the lunar calendar may have an impact on what wine tastes like. The theory was given momentum by German great-grandmother Maria Thun, who published a calendar in the 1950s that displays exactly when it’s best to drink wine. According to her, the calendar is split into four types of days: fruit, flower, leaf and root, which are determined by the position of the moon and stars. As you might imagine, wine is best on fruit days, and worse on root days. The worst day is marked as "unfavourable" in the calendar.Although you might t
It may sound far-fetched, but some people genuinely believe that the lunar calendar may have an impact on what wine tastes like. The theory was given momentum by German great-grandmother Maria Thun, who published a calendar in the 1950s that displays exactly when it’s best to drink wine. According to her, the calendar is split into four types of days: fruit, flower, leaf and root, which are determined by the position of the moon and stars. As you might imagine, wine is best on fruit days, and worse on root days. The worst day is marked as "unfavourable" in the calendar. Although you might think this is hokum, some of the bigger players in the industry have come round to her way of thinking. Tesco and Marks & Spencer, for example, only invite critics to taste wines on ‘fruit’ days, as does independent wine merchant David Motion: “We tried eight wines on Tuesday, which was a leaf day and then the same wines again on Thursday, which was a fruit day. And it was totally conclusive. It wasn't that the wine tasted bad on the Tuesday but it was much more expressive on the Thursday. It was more exuberant and on-song. It was like the heavens opened, the clouds parted and the wine just expressed itself." So why might this phenomenon be true? According to believers, the ‘lunar effect’ exerts an impact not only on tides, but also on the water in the human body and consequently on human behaviour. Biodynamic farmers have expanded on this theory by planting and sowing crops at times when the moon is in an auspicious place, as it also affects the water levels in the earth and in crops. Although many people remain sceptical, there are a large number of people who swear there is a difference between wine on a fruit day compared to any other. Whether this is down to mood, expectation, atmospheric pressure or in fact the position of the moon is yet to be decided once and for all – why don’t you conduct your own experiments and let us know what you think?