Chateau Maris is a beautiful and spiritual place. "There is great history here," says Robert "Bertie" Eden of his adopted home in the South of France, which looks out over never-ending green hills in a wild and wide rugged landscape. Black mountains watch secretly over a medieval village comprising clustered sandstone homes with a singe church tower. You can feel the history in the air and the kno
wledge of the old vines twisting up from the soil. After all, it is the oldest wine region in the world. Robert Eden is the son of a Lord and great-nephew of Anthony Eden, the former prime minister, is often called a rebel. He doesn't think that - he just is... he believes in making something that people will love, that is good for the environment, protects and enhances Mother Earth, that one can enjoy and share and he's all about wellness and health and doing the best he can for the world. He dares to make his own biodynamic wines, in the ultra-conservative Languedoc in a way that is challenging his entire industry. "Getting on the tractor, strapping on the mask and zipping up the overalls ready to spray the vines with chemicals made me think," he says of the moment he realised it was time to change. "It was like being a sewage pipe, spewing effluent into a river. I thought, 'This is revolting. We are going to drink this stuff. What are we doing?'"
So Robert makes his wine according to biodynamics, a step beyond organics to a philosophy that sees the soil, the plants, ' the insects that feed on them, the animals that live there, the people that pick, press and ferment the grapes and the juice in the tank itself as part of a living system, influenced by the weather, the gravitational pull of the Moon, even the movements of the stars. "When all these relationships are in balance," he says, "the soil is richer, the biodiversity in the vineyard thrives and the wine is better." With all the trends in heath and wellness, this can only be the way of the future... not only caring about the vines and the plants and the earth but also caring about our bodies and what we consume.
