Monthly Report - February to March 2025

Vintage vintage…

This has been perhaps one of the most awesome and frustrating vintages I have ever had to work through within my vineyard. It has the capacity to have made some of the best wines ever produced in the region, and it also has the capacity to have produced some of the most disappointing. It is a conundrum, and I will try and explain it such that you can rest easy knowing that most would have kicked goals and the region will be lauded for the Chardonnays and Cabernets – but there were banana skins along the path, so let us work through the vintage together.

Before we kick in with all the vintage of the century type stuff, it should be noted that this vintage was blessed relief after what was an extreme vintage in 2024. Last year we had extreme heat and extreme dry from October 2023 through to April 2024 causing a stress on the forests and the vines that we had not ever seen before. With only 1 inch of rain (25.4mm) falling over the 7 months commencing on 4 October and finishing on 2 May, many trees in the forests simply died where they stood, and every gum tree that could bloom, did, creating a “White Christmas” as the red gums that surround our region all went into bloom at once.

With November and December last year still having above average temperatures, many were approaching January with a bit of traumatic stress left from 2024, but though warm, it was still manageable. February and March continued to be warm this year, but again nothing extreme apart from a very strange heat spike at the end of March while we were picking off the last of the red grapes. Still very dry, and this year there were almost no gum trees that had blossom, an empty forest for all of the birds that rely on it, and this has meant huge bird pressure on the vineyards of the region. We have had a flock of Carnaby’s Black Cockatoos living on the property since December partially living off the grapes in the vineyard, as well as dismantling some red gums in the hope of getting some sustenance out of the honky nuts.

Not a single gum tree in blossom – February 2025

With this above average heat load, most Margeret River wineries were expecting another early vintage – but surprisingly no. Looking back at the pruning of the vines, last year we were waiting and waiting for the vines to finally rest and hibernate post that record dry and warm year. That delay also brought about a delay into the picking dates for this vintage, but only for those who were monitoring not just the sugar levels but also the physiological ripeness and acidity. Sugar levels (especially for the red grapes) were high and appearing ready to go a good three weeks before they were eventually picked. If picked early, this higher acidity makes it difficult to ferment a balanced wine, with stripped flavours and grape skins not fully ripe reducing colour and tannins, and pips carrying green tips giving a hard bitter edge – so patience was critical. For those who were careful and patient, the wines may have turned out sensationally well – anyone who tried to jump the picking gun or pruned too early last year, then these wines will be difficult and “hard” for a word.

Another year in which we only sprayed sulphur and copper in the vineyard (except one spray where we added some kelp to give the leaves a bit of a tonic), and dry grew the estate. It is becoming more important to us to ensure we can get as much flavour from the grapes without propping up the vine artificially. Over the past 10 years we are seeing more and more intensity in our wines and though there is an element of vine age coming into play, this ‘organic’ hand’s off approach does appear to be paying dividends and that is seen in the quality of the wines each and every vintage.

Chardonnay Pick

White grapes are always first up in any wine growing region and Margaret River was in full swing by late January – but not us. Our first sample delivered in for ripeness testing on 6 February (one week after the 2024 pick in late January) and the values were low in sugar and high in acid – and this continued for over 10 days with near identical values and the feeling that it was groundhog day. Finally, some movement on the ripeness needle on 17 February and plans were made for 21 February for the pick.

We woke to a foggy morning (quite the year for misty mornings) and by 7am picking began (with the usual backpacker no shows – it is becoming such a norm that you simply just get on with it knowing that the current batch of travelling young adults from around the world are much less inclined to work hard, turn up or even take a nod of interest in what is going on around them), and with the final group of 7 we took off the tonnage by 1pm. Big thanks to Darren R who is a comrade in Margaret River that made the sacrifice of a morning to pick some small, well hidden Chardonnay bunches. Final numbers back in from Ellin were:

Picked 21 Feb 2025
Weight 1.388t
Beaumé: 12.4Bé
pH: 3.20 pH
Total Acidity 6.6 TA

As always, we had hoped for more tonnage, but overall, we are very pleased with the quality and when tasted from barrel near ferment end it was looking great. Pink grapefruit and very good length and weight – we should be able to bottle another solid wine.

Merlot Pick

No Merlot was picked last year due to the extremes of the heat and the inability of the grape variety to be able to ripen grapes while wondering if it was going to survive through the summer. The vines did have a difficulty in kick starting themselves this vintage, but by December they had set a good crop and the canopy was in fine health considering another dry year and warmer temperatures. The lack of extremes for maximum temperatures suited the vines to the ground, and the crop was looking healthy and ripening with ease. All was well I thought as I sat back in my chaise lounge sipping my 1945 Ch. Margaux – but alas, that sneaky acidity was playing games with us.

It is normal during the final 2-3 weeks of grape ripening that as sugars rise, the acidity held in the grape lowers – one affects the other and as you reach very high sugar levels you drop acid to very low levels. This is famous in the Barossa and in McLaren Vale where the addition of acid in granular form is quite normal due to their desire to get those extremely ripe flavours within their “blockbusting” reds but having to then redress the lack of acid balancing the wine. However, we do not subscribe to the “jam and tannin” sandwich approach as we are after a wine that is balanced from the point of picking through to bottling, so acid levels are important to keep in the “Goldilocks” zone. But what a kerfuffle this was to cause.

From the point of late February to 20 March we had rising and rising sugar levels. We knew it was a warm year with high sugar levels likely, but would the acid levels drop to compensate for this ever-growing sugar content? Nope. Not even a little bit. For three weeks we had the pH levels hover around 3.1pH, when we were aiming for 3.2-3.4pH, and every week we pushed out picking dates to accommodate for this. The date was also starting to become a worry as much cooler years in 2015/16 had picking dates for the Merlot at 17-18 March, and those dates were well and truly in the rearview mirror.

Finally taken off on 25 March, we had a group of Samoans on their last day as migrant workers for the Margaret River wineries picking with us. The three packs of hot cross buns did not last the first five minutes of the smoko and they were pretty keen to get back home, so the picking went quickly. Their speed picking was great also as it was unseasonally hot at >35oC by 2pm and it was a relief to know all the grapes were in the cool room taking their heat out by the arvo. Final numbers were just within our window for acidity and according to the winery, the wine has since balanced it out perfectly as they have seen this with a number of their Bordeaux grape varieties as well – a quirk of the vintage.

Picked 25 Mar 2025
Weight 2.546t
Beaumé: 14.3Bé
pH: 3.20 pH
Total Acidity 5.2 TA

The Samoans and ladies taking a well-earned break – Merlot Pick 2025

Cabernet Franc Pick

We knew we were in for lower tonnages from the Cabernet Franc this year due to the reset applied to many of the vines through pruning the year before. The health of the vines does need to be monitored and to keep on pushing more and more tonnages as many wineries as apt to do, the vines themselves start to produce very generic grapes simply because the whole process has become artificial, and all flavours become diluted across the vineyard.

The great acid mystery continued with ever rising sugar and acidity refusing to drop out over three weeks – in fact the first sample of 6 March had a pH of 3.10 and by 26 March it had moved to 3.13pH! That is a slow burn and something that we had never encountered before and as noted with the Merlot, a quirk of the vintage.

The weather was being kind, though warm, but there was a prediction of significant rainfall on 4-5 April, so the call was made for a pick on 2 April. The usual failure of a few backpackers to make the pick, but all went smoothly and the grapes were all picked by 11am and only the final bucket wash and delivery to the winery to tidy up vintage 2025.

Picked 2 Apr 2025
Weight 1.520t
Beaumé: 14.3Bé
pH: 3.27 pH
Total Acidity 5.9 TA

Vintage Thoughts

Talking to numerous other owners, vineyard and winery staff, there is a lot of confidence in the quality of the grapes (especially the Chardonnays and the Cabernets), but I get the feeling there is also an element of relief that we did not repeat the heat and scorched earth of last year. It is all a bit early to tell if this acidity quirk which has been noted up and down the full region has had an impact on the region’s wines – Ellin at Fraser Gallop believes not and is stoked with the wines overall – but the proof will be after a year in barrel and all has settled (dust and wine).

It was a super busy year for us, so much detail to follow up on in the vineyard and I have managed to average about 15,000 steps a day since October. I do feel happy with the grapes and the wines I have tasted to date, and I am glad to have a break to tidy up those odd jobs like completing this report. So, yes all is good, and we have more red and white deliciousness in the shed.

2024 Chardonnay…

Keep an eye out for a release of the 2024 Chardonnay in the coming few weeks. We have waited an extra couple of months for this release so as to let the wine settle in the bottle a bit more and to ensure the vintage went as planned as it was a busy one.

I did drop a couple of bottles off to Clive (the wine’s winemaker, before he has settled into his current life of luxury as a retired winemaker), and a few days back he sent through some texts bragging about how good he is at rugby tipping (and he is right, this year he is kicking my butt) and how much he was enjoying the latest Chardonnay with some Augusta Nannygai (top drawer fish). He has had an amazing first year without being tethered to a winery as he has attended concerts, snow boarded and made sake in Japan, and had an opportunity to chase a golf ball around manicured paddocks – lucky lucky duck.

We also have just had a review completed by Gary Walsh at WineFront and he also really enjoyed the wine giving it a solid score:

“Pear and cinnamon, a juicy affair here. It’s a bit nutty, quite some spicy oak through apple, peach and pear flavour, has some warmth to it, in a spiced apple pie sort of way, the acidity lends some balance, and there’s something of a tacky wet paint feel to texture (don’t mind me). A little brassy, but flavoursome and good to drink. A generous wine. Fleshy and enjoyable.” Score 91, GW Apr 25

So, keep an eye out on your inboxes – there never is much Chardonnay made due to the small crops we produce from these vines and there is always solid demand. We are feeling much more confident with this variety now and looking back at the 2020 and 2021 wines, both have aged superbly well and there would be no issue with stacking a few away for a little rest.

Change-over Wines

You know they are coming...be quick.

Pareidolia…

For the sharp eyed and well read of these monthly reports of ours, many of you may have noted an odd word or phrase each month that requires either a quick check of the dictionary or quick scan of the old memory bank. Each month I try my best to weave in a word provided to me by a good friend John G and this month I have decided to use “Pareidolia” which is seeing of shapes, patterns or faces in inanimate objects such as clouds for example. However, rather than hidden in text this month, it will be the topic. This is as I have a feeling that many of us are now trying to piece together the craziness of the past two months of world politics and trying to define some sort of pattern or historical reference (a distorted pareidolia to be honest), for which to tie our understanding to – our personal explanation.

While we all have the capacity to see an image of Jesus in our toast each morning – halleluiah – the resetting of the world’s alliances and economic intertwined-ness is predominantly out of our reach though, as we are simply not old enough and not as well versed in the intricacies of history. The last world war ended in 1945, a good 80 years back and I am pretty sure that there are very few reading this piece remembering seeing their family members heading out by boat to Egypt or Papua New Guinea. We are the “protected” generation as there has not been major “turbulence” through all-encompassing wars and depressions since 1945. I do not say that there has not been wars – Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria, Israel etc etc have kept the war machine churning – but a war that has reset the maps and world order has not been on the cards.

In fact, the thought of a world war to most just seems absurd now. We are not built for even the concept and heaven help the average 19yo currently having a first year at university learning how to kill others with bullets, drones and bombs. But wars have been the key events that lead to the growth and demise of empires and cultures – a New World Order just does not ring true without a major fall out between nations with resultant winners and losers.

So, what is the gist here Gifford?

I am saying that if we are to apply the loose laws of pareidolia to the past two months we will see that we are reaching for the New World Order reset button. A great big damn red one, the one they say you should not push under any circumstances. If we have not already pushed it…

As I type this missive, the American Presidential Office has declared tariffs on the whole world (including the Heard and McDonald Islands – the Singapore of the Southern Ocean). All should come into effect on 9 April (maybe after this monthly report is released), and in doing so it will make the world’s biggest market extremely hard to access as the cost of all imports into America will rise significantly. Imports will be reduced almost instantly as the various export/import partners decide on how to move forward, as well as many American companies holding off the import of their own products until they can get some sort of dispensation with the Presidential Office. It is the commencement of a big reset, but without the usually attached guns and tanks, and this is why everyone has a different take on the same cloud formation – for every person seeing a lion head, there are others seeing a guinea pig or sheep’s head. Many see this as an end time and others as a blip, and I will try and explain their reasoning as I perceive it to be.

All “Empires”, for a term, go through specific life phases – and this goes back to beyond Roman times. These phases simply put are seen to be:

Peace – Prosperity – Productivity
Financial Bubble – large wealth gaps
Financial Bust
Printing of Money and Credit
Revolutions and Civil Wars / National Wars
Debt and Political Restructuring
New World Order

The current consensus by the economists is that the US is heading headfirst into points 3 and 4 at a great rate of knots. The immediate nature of the tariffs will ensure that many Americans will be bankrupt well before any restructuring of the American industry comes into play – the world’s biggest consumers will lose the capacity to consume. You race into a depression and that will eventually break the system of circulating cash and then you reset. The US was fortunate to have post their last great depression, a world war going on in Europe and Asia that they got to produce a massive amount of weapons (thus creating the military complex that we still see today). The biggest advantage post the cessation of fighting was that it was not on American soil, so with their head start in the “Peace – Prosperity – Productivity” portion of the Empire growth chart, took the mantle in the New World Order relegating the Europeans and parts of Asia to dependents.

However. There is also a consensus that this whole tariff kerfuffle is a form of managing the huge external debt owed by America through the reducing the 10 Year bond rates upon which this debt is collared to. Much of the current debt of $9 Trillion has an effective interest rate set at 0.0%, however in 2026 significant percentages of this debt will be coming out of the term period and to be reset again based on the 10yr bond rates which is currently 4.2%. If you put America into a massive recession then “poof” go the yield rates and watch your repayment rates drop by billions for each percentage point. To make this argument you are saying that someone has thought that the suffering of most of the population into poverty is excellent as it means the US dollar remains strong and the government limits its repayment schedules. Wow.

As the markets go into a form of frenzy in an attempt to see who the winners and losers are, as well as trying to determine if it is all about the 10yr bond rate, it is quite apparent that the form of American Capitalism currently in play has a deep disconnect with the populism of the political leadership. Nike, Apple, Walmart – to name but three – have most of their products produced offshore, and they have no current intention of making their products in America. These major companies will now have to turn outward and view the 7.7+ billion other souls on this planet as the major market and not the 340 Million sitting within those United States. Will we see them hitch their wagon to a new “Empire”? (one can only assume the Chinese and/or Europeans), raid their $billions stash stored in tax havens all around the world to ride this out? Or splinter into 100 different company pieces as national representatives take possession of their own futures? Who could know – but know this, they will be planning ways to exploit this situation and with well-constructed and conceived pathways forward all well in advance of the bumbling and incoherent political leadership in play.

How this plays in the world of wine will be very difficult to define. America is a huge market for wine and spirits, and European producers will feel the effect the most and for a long time to come. Australian wine entering the US market, surprisingly, is not as high in value as wine exported elsewhere around the globe and this is due to the large market share of [yellowtail] and other more budget priced wines. With Australia having a lower tariff set (and our poor dollar exchange rate), it may in fact cause a rise in sales for our exporters. The impact of the rising costs in America, however, may in fact reduce demand for discretionary spending on wine and the like regardless, such that it could all be a bit of “as it was”.

The disruption of the world markets and interconnectivity by a bellicose USA has everyone scratching their heads. [And as I completed this topic, the US tariffs have been altered once more and most delayed implementation by 90 days – it appears to be impossible to predict whatever will happen next.] Thus, we are all just lying in the grass looking up and pointing at the clouds and saying “Look, that is a dragon!” an economic form of pareidolia.

Warmth remains...

The big takeaway from the past two months of weather has been that it was warm without being scorched, and it was dry without being parched. Does this make sense? February was relatively cool for maximums, and this meant that the vines were not stressed by the last period of ripening. March had the most unusual event of 4-5 very hot days during the last week of the month (all sorts of records broken), raising the averages even more after the first 23 days of mostly steady warm temperatures and giving us the warmest March on record for the vineyard. But for the warmth, it did not feel as “crazy” as last year, and you still felt that it was near “normal” which made you that much more confident that all will be well.

The numbers for the past two months and last year’s figures are provided below:

February 2025:

Avg Maximum Temp 28.1°C
Daily Max recorded 35.3°C

Avg Minimum Temp 14.3°C
Daily Min recorded 8.4°C

Rainfall: 2.6mm

March 2025:

Avg Maximum Temp 28.7°C
Daily Max recorded 36.6°C

Avg Minimum Temp 13.4°C
Daily Min recorded 7.1°C

Rainfall: 19.0mm

The average maximum and minimum temperature averages for February are lower in 2025 than 2024, however March 2025 had higher maximum and minimum averages than in 2024. Rainfall total for 2025 is negligible and this was the case in 2024 as well.

February 2024:

Avg Maximum Temp 31.0°C
Daily Max recorded 41.4°C

Avg Minimum Temp 14.9°C
Daily Min recorded 9.9°C

Rainfall: 1.8mm

March 2024:

Avg Maximum Temp 27.8°C
Daily Max recorded 34.9°C

Avg Minimum Temp 12.9°C
Daily Min recorded 6.9°C

Rainfall: 4.0mm

Just Chillin’…

The vintage has been put to bed, I have managed to knock out this monthly report, and my Waikato Chiefs rugby team is having a good season. So, all is well with the world. Tim will return from a trip to India, traveling with his son’s cricket team and visiting some of the sites. The Chardonnay will be made available to the Mailing List and look out for a possible little prize included in the release – discounts always apply on release so do not miss out!

As always if you have any queries about what has been written or about wine in general, do not hesitate to contact us either by email, Instagram or Twitter and we will do our very best to answer any question.

Cheers

Mark Gifford

Blue Poles Vineyard