Syrah, Lismore Estate Vineyards 2020
Parker 94 (2024); Tim Atkin MW 91 (2024); Neal Martin 92 (2024); James Suckling 92; JancisRobinson.com 90
Mix any six bottles and you pay the Any 6+ price at checkout — no code needed.
£10 tracked UK delivery, however many bottles.
We pack and send twice a week, Wednesdays and Fridays, by Royal Mail Tracked 48.
Members pay £33.60 — £8.40 less on this bottle. Membership is £120 a year and carries the EDKA Promise. Membership terms
Why this wine
Half Greyton, half Elgin — two of South Africa's coldest vineyard sites — and the result is a Syrah closer to the northern Rhône than to anything Mediterranean. Whole-bunch fermentation and restrained oak keep it savoury and light on its feet. It answers the question of what Cape Syrah does when nobody is chasing ripeness.
At a glance
- Grape
- Syrah
- Region
- Greyton, South Africa
- Alcohol
- 12.50%
- Body
- Light
- Acidity
- High
- Tannins
- Medium
- Sweetness
- Dry
- Drink
- Short (3-5 yrs)
- Pairs with
- Red Meat, Poultry & Pork, Cheese
How it tastes
Cassis, blackberry and cherry with white pepper, ground herbs and a strong floral lift of crushed violets, and smoky black olive underneath. It is light-framed and elegant rather than dense, held together by fresh acidity and quiet structure. Syrah 100%.
The producer
The Californian Samantha O'Keefe founded Lismore Estate Vineyards in the foothills of a dramatic mountain range at the bottom of Africa, and the estate was recently classed as a First Growth and crowned Winery of the Year in Tim Atkin MW's 2026 South Africa Report; it also pioneered the Wine of Origin 'Greyton', designated by SAWIS. This Syrah is drawn half from Greyton, planted in heavy schist with no irrigation, and half from Elgin, on sandstone and shale — two of the coolest climates in South Africa, whose extreme day-to-night temperature swings give the wine its depth and concentration. Picked at optimal ripeness, 40% of the fruit was fermented as whole bunches in 5,000-litre vats with gentle pump-overs twice a day for a long extraction; the free run was drained off and the rest basket pressed in a traditional wooden press, before malolactic conversion and twelve months in 225-, 300- and 500-litre barrels, 15% of them new.
Food and drinking
Serve at 15–16°C. It works with roast duck, lamb chops, charcuterie or a herb-crusted pork loin. Drink now or over the next three to five years; an hour in a decanter helps. Sealed with a DIAM closure. Suitable for vegetarians and vegans.