Lismore Estate Vineyards Estate Reserve Viognier 2023
£44.25
The wine
The Lismore Estate Reserve Viognier has always stood out as something special. The expression is dried apricot and fresh ginger with hints of honeysuckle, through to a concentrated palate with a fresh, clean acidity that supports the extravagance of the fruit.
The Estate Reserve wines come from the home vineyards at Greyton, planted at around 300 metres where nobody had grown grapes before. Reserve Viognier is the fuller expression of the variety here, given more time in barrel, and the site's altitude and cool nights are what keep a naturally low-acid grape in balance.
The producer
Lismore Estate Vineyards
View all Lismore Estate Vineyards winesSamantha O'Keefe left California in 2003, bought land in the foothills near Greyton in the Overberg, and planted vines where nobody had planted them before. Lismore Estate Vineyards grew up alongside her two young sons, and much of the early work she did herself.
The site is the point. The vineyards sit at around 300 metres in a cool corner of the Cape South Coast, chilled by winter snow on the mountains above and ventilated through summer, which gives a much longer, slower ripening season than the classic Cape regions further north. The wines that result are cool-climate in character, built on acidity and detail rather than power, and made almost entirely by hand.
In December 2019 a wildfire swept through the property and destroyed the cellar, the equipment and her home. She rebuilt from nothing, borrowed space, and kept making wine. The bottlings that have followed are widely held to be the best of her career, which says a good deal about both the site and the winemaker.
