How Lismore Estate overcame adversity, plus the wines to try

A Hollywood scriptwriter looking for inspiration could do worse than the story of Lismore Estate.

It begins as a love-at-first sight relationship between a feisty, ultra-determined young Californian, and a gorgeous, untamed landscape, moves through two decades of ‘hero battling against insurmountable odds’ drama, then bursts into joyous ‘world at your feet’ triumph before collapsing into heart-breaking tragedy.

Samantha O’Keefe first visited South Africa in 1992, and was bowled over by the wide-open spaces and the frontier feel of the place.

After a lucrative spell working in television in Los Angeles, she felt that her life was ‘on the wrong path’, resigned, packed up her flat and headed off to go travelling.

But this was no temporary sabbatical. She knew she wasn’t coming back.

When she arrived in the Cape, she used the money she had from a small inheritance and her savings from the unwanted TV career to buy an old farm near Greyton, 80km east of Stellenbosch.

This was apple and dairy country, but to the scepticism of the locals O’Keefe set about planting its 20% slope with vines.

Research suggested a climate similar to the northern Rhône, so in went Viognier and Syrah, Sauvignon Blanc (because ‘everyone was planting it’) and Chardonnay (‘because we were Californian’).

Greyton is high – 300m – and remote: an end-of-the road village of 2,000 people, of looming mountains and cold winters.

Vines flower here about the same time as Stellenbosch, but grapes ripen three weeks later. It’s has a long growing season and there’s excellent natural acidity in the resulting wines.

So the theory was good, but it was, O’Keefe admits, still a gamble verging on the reckless. She had no support network, little money, and no formal winemaker training. Even today, the nearest wine estate is Gabrielskloof, 50km away. She was very much on her own.

‘I put myself and my children at risk.’ 

‘The security risk of being so isolated, the financial risk of doing something so silly as trying to found a wine farm… I was totally naïve. I do think that’s the American in me; the idea that with enough hard work and passion I can do anything.’

Critical acclaim

What could have been a hot mess of misplaced idealism, however, turned out to be a stroke of genius. The terroir was perfect for Syrah, Viognier and Chardonnay, and having little money to spend on winery equipment gave O’Keefe a unique house style.

‘Originally all I had was a basket press,’ she says, ‘so it was super-oxidative handling of the juice. It was a practical thing that resulted in high-risk, Old World-style wines. By accident I was creating a Burgundian Chardonnay!’

Her simple, traditional style of winemaking might have been borne out of necessity rather than design, but people loved it, and O’Keefe began to finesse her technique, with older oak, lees contact and larger barrels, the latter following advice from Dominique Hébrard of Château Trianon in St-Emilion.

It made for wines with brightness and texture rather than sweetness and big fruit, and critics began to take notice.

Scores went up and, biting the bullet five years ago, so did her prices. Nobody blinked. Importers kept buying, customers kept ordering, scores stayed high.

The self-confessed ‘Californian cowboy’ had made it into the elite of South African wine, creator of some of the Cape’s best Chardonnay and Syrah, and some of the best Viognier anywhere in the New World.

After nearly 20 years of struggle, Sam O’Keefe finally had money, a small new winery, a finely honed winemaking style and a new visitor centre.

Against all the odds, she’d created a globally respected wine from nothing. She’d realised her dream.

Then, a week before Christmas 2019 the dream turned into a nightmare.

Engulfed by flames

For seven days, a fire had been burning high up in the nature reserve behind Greyton. There was nothing especially unusual about this. The Cape’s vegetation is hardwired to burn and regenerate, and the fire teams – 100 firefighters and two helicopters – had been keeping an eye on it and weren’t unduly concerned.

But on 17 December, whipped up by strong winds, the fire raced down the mountain at terrifying speed, straight towards Lismore Estate.

O’Keefe was in Greyton and drove back as fast as she could. ‘When I arrived on the farm some of the vineyards were already burning,’ she says.

‘There was a little fire next to the house but it wasn’t particularly threatened, so I went to the cellar. My cellarhand and I were trying to save it, and then a tidal wave of fire crashed down on our heads. It came down from the sky.’

Her staff were wetting floors and walls to try and save the house, then realised they were trapped. They had to crawl out from under the floorboards.

‘We couldn’t see, and my car was melting around me when I was driving trying to find my staff,’ she says bleakly.

‘By the time we evacuated it was over. One minute it was over there and the next minute we were engulfed.

‘It was a storm of fire.’

Something that had taken 20 years of love, sweat and dedication to build was gone in 20 minutes.

‘Every single tree has gone. Every large bush has gone. It burned everything: winery, house – and the 2019 vintage. The bathtubs are dust.’

Rebuilding

O’Keefe talks about all of this in a slow, measured manner, missing nothing out. Her honesty is painful, her composure extraordinary.

It’s only when she’s asked whether she can come back from this that you sense the void of grief she must be processing.

‘I will rebuild,’ she says shakily. ‘I have to rebuild. I don’t have a choice.

‘The winery will probably look like it did before, but the house… I don’t know. I’m at a very different space in my life. That energy comes from love and vision and hope, and at a time like this I don’t feel that.’

Her peers in the Cape have been amazing, lending winery space and donating grapes to ensure that she has wine to make and sell.

Around the world importers have rushed to buy bottles; fans have organised fundraisers.

‘The industry has kept me moving forward whether I wanted to or not.’

‘Even if I wanted to run away or climb into bed they’re making sure that I have to harvest, I have to make wine. I’m going on. That’s it. Even if I don’t believe it, they do.’

With time, it is hoped she can come to believe it too – to dredge up enough of her formidable energy to return Lismore to where it was.

‘One of the things I’m always very proud of with Lismore is that I found its purpose,’ she says.

‘Dry-land farming quality grapes was what it was meant to be.’

 A taste of Lismore Estate

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