2004 Condrieu

As impressively-and often dramatically-as the Guigal red wines showed this year, some of the most intriguing moments occurred while I tasted through the expanding range of white wines on offer here.Vintage 2004 provided a marvelous opportunity to make intense, sharply focused whites that accurately reflect their sites, and Philippe Guigal is very pleased with the family's results.The red wines from 2004, as elsewhere in the Rhone Valley, show brighter red fruit qualities and greater elegance than the 2003s, but the character of 2003 hardly concerned the Guigals."We like to go with the vintage, rather than try to correct it or change its essential character," Philippe Guigal told me."Most people were scared of the ripeness of 2003 but we decided to go for maximum expression of this crazy year," he added.Macerations here are lengthy as a rule, but in 2003 they were extended to a full month, "for as much extraction as possible."The result, in the opinion of Philippe, is a group of wines "that are among the best we have ever made.I am incredibly happy."