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The 2025 vintage broke records for the earliest start and the earliest finish to a harvest ever here at Pfeiffer Wines. The growing season saw below average Spring rainfall, dotted with a couple of rainfall events in late November and early December, around flowering.  Summer proved to be hot and dry, with multiple days in January and February reaching temperatures above 40C, with minimum night time temperatures of around 25C.

Despite early irrigations from September onwards, yields were down, up to 50% in some blocks, with an overall average of 20% across our vineyards.  The combination of the warm and dry conditions, and the lower yields saw the rapid onset of ripening, with the first fruit picked our Sunday Creek Chardonnay on 5th February, 2 days earlier than 2007 (the peak of the drought). The continued warm days and nights saw vintage progress at a rapid pace, with lots of pressure on winery infrastructure, with many varieties ripening at the same time. The fast pace continued right to the end of vintage on 1st April, with our Sunday Creek Muscadelle for Topaque completing the vintage.

The conditions of the vintage has seen very good fruit quality across most varieties, with very low disease pressure. The warmer conditions have seen great colours and richness develop in our red varieties, being particularly strong in our Durif and Shiraz wines. The fortified varieties have also performed very strongly, particularly our Muscats and Portuguese varieties for our port style wines, which is very exciting and holds great promise for the future.

The 2025 Pfeiffer Gamay was blended from fruit from our old vines (planted in 1976) and our young vines (planted in 1989). The two blocks ripen at different times, so were picked separately, but treated in the same way in the winery.

The Gamay grapes were hand-picked into airtight bins. Yeast and CO2 gas were added and the bins sealed. The grapes commenced fermentation in their whole bunches (including stalks) in these airtight conditions (known as carbonic maceration).

After around 14-20 days, the bins were opened and the grapes crushed by foot (a process called “pigeage”). Fermentation continued with pigeage carried out 3 times a day. After 3 days of pigeage, the wine was pressed into a stainless steel tank for completion of alcoholic fermentation.

Each parcel was kept separate until the completion of alcoholic fermentation. The two parcels were then blended, fined and clarified prior to bottling in May 2025 to lock in fruitfulness and freshness.

Our 2025 Gamay displays a fragrant nose of summer berry and dark red cherry fruits. Traditional foot treading methods are used to create soft tannins, good mid-palate weight and a long, savoury finish.

Pfeiffer Gamay can be enjoyed chilled or at room temperature and is the perfect accompaniment to most foods.