New 2023 releases from Lismore Estate

"If you have not discovered Lismore then, well, don’t blame me when you discover what you’re missing out on." Neal Martin, Vinous, Nov '23

We are delighted to offer for the first time the 2023 Reserve Chardonnay and Age of Grace Viognier from Lismore Estate in Greyton, South Africa. We offered several of Sam O'Keefe's '23 vintage wines last year, but this is the first release for her Reserve Chardonnay, often compared with Corton-Charlemagne, and for the Viognier, a variety for which Sam has become famous.

The story of the most recent vintages has been one of triumphant recovery after the estate was partially destroyed by a wildfire in December 2019, but the 2023 whites take quality a step beyond the pre-fire wines, putting them right at the very top-tier in the Cape. As Neal Martin comments: "If there's a better Chardonnay from the Cape this vintage, I haven’t tasted it. (96 points)". He duly places it 10th in his "Vinous Top 100 Wines of Year - 2024".

The 2023 vintage was smaller than usual, hence stocks are limited, so please let us know as soon as possible if you would like to order.

Read more about Sam's extraordinary journey to becoming one of South Africa's best winemakers in the profile below.

Offered en primeur, expected in the UK by July 2025.

05 Feb 2025

Pre-landing offers

Producer Profile

Lismore Estate, South Africa

Owner and Winemaker Samantha O'Keefe was a TV executive in LA and a single mother of two, with no winemaking experience. She bought a remote mountain in South Africa in the early 2000s and planted a vineyard. In 2019, Neal Martin tasted the wines and ranked them with the greatest in the world. The story already read like a script for a TV drama, but then, just before Christmas 2019, we learnt that her home and winery had been destroyed in a devastating wildfire, which she and her staff narrowly escaped with their lives.

'TV drama' comparisons do not do justice to what is likely to have been a traumatic experience for Sam. A crowdfunding site was set up and other SA wineries lent barrels to make her 2020 vintage. Happily, most of the vines have escaped damage and Sam's 2018 vintage was already in bottle, stored in cellars away from the winery.

Self-taught as a winemaker, in a short space of time, Samantha created wines to vie with the very best in the world. Neal Martin compares the Reserve Chardonnay to Corton-Charlemagne, whilst on Jancisrobinson.com Julia Harding MW describes the Hermitage-like Syrah as 'mouth-wateringly good'.

For Martin these are among a new breed of wines "born in climactic knife-edge, dry-farmed vineyards, often from ancient vines, and with minimal intervention by talented and frequently young winemakers in the opening chapters of long careers."