Vintage 2008

hot nights · harvested very early · the same everywhere

Nationwide 6.0 out of 10 · Confidence of rating: medium

Macedonia

Naoussa · PDO – Red 6.5 · White 6.0 (Confidence: medium)

Central Greece

Attika · PGI – Red 6.5 · White 6.0 (Confidence: medium)

Peloponnese

Mantinia · PDO – Red 6.0 · White 6.5 (Confidence: medium)

Nemea · PDO – Red 5.5 · White 6.0 (Confidence: medium)

Cyclades

Santorini · PDO – Red 6.0 · White 6.5 (Confidence: low)

Crete 6.0 · Pangeon 6.0 · Peloponnese outside Nemea and Mantinia 6.0 (each as an overall value without separation by color)

Between the highest and the lowest value on this page lies a single point. No other vintage in our series is this uniform, and the reason is not a good one: 2008 did the same thing everywhere.

It was the second extremely hot and dry year in a row. In the north it began the other way around: a cool, wet spring delayed budbreak and flowering, but pushed growth and produced larger berries. Then it flipped. July and August turned extremely hot and dry, the thermometer stood above 32 degrees on more than 50 days, peaking at 40.

The real story, though, was the nights. They no longer cooled down, and where the night brings no respite, sugar and tannin drift apart: the must turns sweet before the seeds and skins are ripe. That is the core problem of hot years, and 2008 demonstrated it in its purest form.

Naoussa – Red 6.5

One number describes this year better than any sentence. The span between mid-veraison and harvest, normally around 60 days for Xinomavro and still 53 the year before, shrank to 36 days in 2008. For the first time ever it fell below 40. A late-ripening variety got half the time it needs.

What came of it is solidly mid-range. The color benefited from moderate summer stress, the large berries from the wet early phase demanded yield control, and the early-picked, selected high-altitude parcels delivered very good quality. The plateau of Amyndeon at 700 meters kept its nights cooler than the surrounding area – the decisive advantage in this year.

The north itself rates the vintage soberly: similar to 2005, better than 2006, but not as good as 2007.

Nemea – Red 5.5

The weakest value on the page, and it follows directly from the warm nights. Agiorgitiko has a thin skin and reacts sensitively to the decoupling of sugar and phenolic ripeness; the risk was high-alcohol wines with unripe tannin. Anyone who wanted balance had to pick very early and parcel by parcel.

The season began with low water reserves and ran normally until July, then ripening raced through a particularly dry August. Harvest began on September 10, roughly two weeks earlier than usual and earlier than anyone there could remember. Rainfall amounted to about 515 millimeters.

Where altitude helped – Mantinia and Santorini at 6.5 each for whites

The two top white values of this vintage stand where the night still cooled. In Mantinia, Moschofilero stayed fresh with early picking; on Santorini, Assyrtiko held its acidity despite a depleted water balance and produced concentrated, structured wines that keep for a long time. Harvest there began as early as August.

In the warm lowlands – Attika, Patras, the floor of the Nemea valley – the acidity was lost. The timing of the harvest decided everything.

Our wines

We have tasted five Greek wines from 2008. The median stands at 95 points, and that number does not describe the vintage, but our cellar.

All five are red, all five are international varieties, and four of them come from two estates: three times the Etos Cabernet Sauvignon from Ktima Biblia Chora in Pangeon with 95, 95 and 94 points, plus the Trilogia by Christos Kokkalis from Ilia with 96. The fifth is the Domaine Gerovassiliou Red from Epanomi with 90.

From Naoussa and from Nemea, the two regions on which this vintage was decided, we do not have a single bottle. From old vintages, it is rarely the typical that gets opened anyway, but what is worth it.

All tasting notes from 2008

· Christos Kokkalis Trilogia · 96

· Ktima Biblia Chora Etos Cabernet Sauvignon · 94

· Ktima Biblia Chora Etos Cabernet Sauvignon · 95

· Ktima Gerovassiliou Domaine Gerovassiliou Red · 90

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