2021 Chardonnay

I must confess, there was a bit of emotion returning to Lismore to see proprietor and winemaker, Samantha O’Keefe. Having lost practically everything to wildfires at the end of 2019, the winery, her home and swathes of vineyard, it was enough to make most winemakers throw in the towel. Amazingly…or perhaps not amazingly given O’Keefe’s resilience, Lismore has literally risen from the ashes. Crucially, they have been able to continue to release wine thanks to benevolent winemakers that rallied around her in time of need. “The most important thing was obtaining used barrels,” O’Keefe tells me in her rebuilt house. “You just cannot go out and buy them. People came to me offering their used barrels three weeks before the harvest.” She uses larger format, 500-liter barrels for her estate-bottled labels and using around 30% new oak, a percentage skewed by the fire and destined to reduce with time. “The vines are dry land farmed on shale soils and so bunches were very tiny,” she remarks. Her 2021s are must-buys for those interested in tasting where Cape winemaking is at. I have detailed the origins of purchased fruit in my tasting notes, wines that have seen O’Keefe through a tumultuous period, serendipitously expanded her winemaking knowledge and forged bonds with fellow winemakers. Rebuilding the winery even allowed her to make improvements, for example, installing an office above the vat-room. Her wines just taste very assured and complete, the 2021 Estate Reserve Chardonnay oozing class and so more-ish I would have escaped with the bottle had the brilliant Valkyrie Chardonnay not followed, this cuvée reserved for this year’s CWG Auction. O’Keefe is always interesting to talk to, quite critical of her wines when she sees fit, but the bottom line is that this resurrected winery will undoubtedly go from strength to strength.