Guigal 2008 harvest report

Philippe Guigal pictured here at Ch d'Ampuis, son of Marcel and general manager and winemaker for Guigal, gives a realistic account of  the 2008 vintage in the northern Rhône. After weather 'worthy of London' in the run up to the harvest, they did have fine weather during the harvest itself.

Regarding the harvest, I’ll try to sum up the controversial feeling we have right now. June, July and August have been globally cloudy and rainy (except the day of our wedding!).

Therefore, coming back from our summer holidays end of august, we were quite pessimistic. The pressure of diseases was very strong: mildew, black rot, botrytis, etc. Unfortunately, we saw incredible rainfalls early September and we almost lost everything.

Following this period, the only way to avoid a complete disaster would have been to have strong winds, sunshine (to dry the grapes) and cold temperatures (to avoid the propagation of botrytis) and this is exactly what happened.