2004 Crozes-Hermitage

Finishing touches were being made to Guigal's massive new cuverie on the route nationale, across the street from the original facility, when I visited in November. With a stainless-steel tank capacity of 25,700 hectoliters and a cellar that's literally the size of an American football field, the Guigals have realized their dream of having all of their wines under their own watch in Ampuis. I might have to bring a bicycle next year to get around the cellar. White wines are a very big deal here:Guigal makes almost 45% of all Condrieu, and Philippe Guigal is very high on the 2005 vintage. "The wines are more crisp, more mineral and more floral than the 2004s," he told me, "and 2004 is an outstanding vintage. "I also tasted samples of the 2005 single-site Cote-Roties and they are, predictably, to die for; Guigal did not present the '04s as he felt they were in a particularly awkward stage of their evolution in barrel.

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."