Well, well, well! The Biodynamic Calendar is drawn up using the cycles of the moon. Today is a Root Day according to the Biodynamic Calendar and wines are supposed to taste 'less well' on Root or Leaf days compared to Fruit or Flower days. So we sampled Fondreche Fayard 2008, a heady Cotes de Ventoux from the Rhone Valley that is actually produced biodynamically; and Lauca Reserva Sauvignon Blanc 2009 from the Maule Valley in Chile, to see if there was any noticeable difference.

We tried the wines at 3pm both days. We tried the Fayard at 18 degrees centigrade and the Lauca at 9 degrees. Both wines came from newly opened bottles from the same case. We left the Fayard to air for 30 minutes before tasting it. The results?

The Sauvignon Blanc was remarkable on Friday. With a powerful elderflower and citrus nose, it was smooth, rich, almost creamy on the palate. It was well-balanced and had fantastic length. The Fayard was great on the nose, with ripe fruit, glace cherries, barm brack in warmth and intensity. Sweet fruit, particularly black cherry on the palate, with bracing acidity and tannins.

Today, Saturday, a funny thing happened. Both wines tasted as well as yesterday. If anything the Fayard was better-balanced then yesterday. But the big difference was on the nose and in the length. Both wines were way less open today, showing little of the depth and breath they demonstrated yesterday. The same applies to the length of both wines. Both were shorter and less complex today.

As a wine-tasting experience, I enjoyed yesterday far more because there was more on show. It's not that the wines were bad today, just less showy.

Now there could be any number of reasons for these differences. It could have been what we had for lunch, slight differences in the wines in the bottles, whatever. So there will have to be much more experimentation (yaaay!), but early results suggest there is a definite difference.