By now we all know the tragedy that befell Samantha O’Keefe at her Greyton winery in 2019 when wild bushfires destroyed her winery and homestead together with her entire 2019 vintage. Fortunately, her 2018s were stored at another location and survived.

Samantha is thankfully back up and running in temporary cellar space and with the help of many in the SA wine industry, has produced wines from the superb 2020 vintage. With the 2018 vintages arriving in the UK in March, escaping the shackles of the South African export lockdown, I thought it was the perfect time to post this stellar review.

I tasted the 2018 Reserve Syrah for the first time in October 2019 and kept a second bottle until May 2020 to watch it settle further. This wine is a towering achievement and in one glassful, summarises the greatness being achieved with all the wines at Lismore, especially the Reserve ranges made from Greyton estate fruit, but also makes the pain of losing the entire 2019 production that much more heartfelt and tragic.

If you can get your hands of some of this wine, you absolutely must!

Lismore Reserve Syrah 2018, WO Greyton, 12.5 Abv.

This suave, sophisticated Syrah offering made from 100% Greyton estate fruit used 50% of whole bunches in the fermentation before being aged in both 500 and 700 litre French oak barrels with roughly a third of new oak. After following this wine from its maiden release, the 2018 towers above anything that has come before. The bouquet is mesmerising, lifted, intricate, showing perfumed violets and fragrant dried lavender with striking notes of pink musk, dusty limestone minerality, grilled winter chestnuts, bonfire cinders and an attractive savoury, earthy black berry, black cherry complexity. The palate is so incredibly lithe and elegant, pure, fresh and linear with fabulous luminosity and brightness of fruit. Wonderfully intense and focused yet simultaneously light on its feet, this stellar release is a dead ringer for the finest, most elegant Cote Roties from the Northern Rhône. A truly epic, spellbinding creation from Samantha O’Keefe. Drink on release or cellar for 10+ years.

(Wine Safari Score: 97+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)