| Grape harvest 2008 |
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Grape harvest 2008 proceeded under good conditions and ended in the neighborhoods of mid-October. In spite of two stormy episodes which have occurred mid-September, thanks to the Mistral and at the fresh temperatures which rose from it (between 1,5 and 2 °C of less than the seasonal averages), the vine growers profited from satisfactory climatic conditions which enabled them to spread out their grape harvest until their grapes reach of perfect maturities phenolic and technological. It is a paramount factor in the technical route making it possible to work out wines of quality. The aim being to optimize for each piece the potential of various type of vines of name Châteauneuf-du-Pape, by taking account of the factors pedoclimatic inherent in each one of them. While the previous years, because of the strong precocity of the years, the practice had been established to gather the grapes as of at the end of August, in 2008, it will have been necessary to wait the last days of September to start to collect grenache and mourvèdre. A date (which does not have anything exceptional and) which corresponds to what was practiced until the middle of the Eighties. As in the whole of the French vineyard, the important pluviometry of spring 2008 resulted by a pressure of mildew higher than the average and in a run-out which was far from being negligible. So the grape harvest 2008 is marked by significant drops of the collected quantities, being established total volume with 84.000 hls for a potential of production of 110.000 hls out of the 3160 hectares of name. Tasted mid-January, the red wines presented fresh fruit flavors (strawberry, cherry), spiced notes (black pepper, anise, liquorice) and were characterized by beautiful densities, frankness and greediness, elegant tannins, melted but quite present. The white wines are declined on notes of white flowers (almond trees, cherry trees), they present a beautiful width, richness and a final on freshness and balance. In 2009 the vineyard of Châteauneuf-du-Pape will celebrate the 80 years of its recognition in “label of quality ”, (the recognition in “controlled” label of quality intervening only in the month of May 1936, this new form of legal protection having only was created in July 1935). |