Former television executive Samantha O’Keefe left her native California and settled in South Africa in the early 2000s. Arriving with her two small children, she went ahead and bought a mountain. Her land is located in Greyton and she planted her first vines in 2004. Her choice of site seemed bizarre to many and she really is out on a limb when compared to the major wine producing areas in the country. However, her steadfastness and determination saw her small estate grow into something truly remarkable and she is now recognised as a pioneer for a new and exciting appellation.

A complete auto-didact, Samantha first approached wine in a highly technical manner and consulted obsessively with oenologists over pH and fructose/glucose analyses. Her lack of formal wine training was the motivation for getting to know wine ‘from the inside out’ and she immersed herself in learning about grapes and viticulture at a molecular level. As time’s gone by and the vintages have racked up, she has developed a much more intuitive approach to wine making and lets the juice do its own thing, taking a rather more hands-off approach. The result is increasingly more complex, characterful and surprising wines. Focussing less on exuberant aromatics, she concentrates on creating wines with amazing texture and refinement and it’s easy to see how much more complex and profound they will become as they age. (RRS 31/05/2019)