Confirm Your Age Please come back and visit us when you're 18.

The Light on the Lagoon: A New Look for Our Lighthouse Wines, and an Estate Olive Oil You Won’t Find on Supermarket Shelves

A note from our cellar in Walker Bay, South Africa

If you’ve poured a glass of Benguela Cove Lighthouse Sauvignon Blanc with dinner this week, you may have noticed something has changed. Our Lighthouse range - the more approachable, earlier-drinking wines from our cellar in Walker Bay - has been given a new label. Cleaner, more contemporary, more deliberately anchored to the place that makes them.

The wines inside are exactly as they were: a Sauvignon Blanc, a Provence-style Rosé, a Shiraz, and the ever-popular, multi-award-winning Moody Lagoon red blend, all made from estate-grown grapes on the South African coast.

The story behind the lighthouse

The lighthouse on the label is real. It stands beside our winery on the estate’s lagoon-facing edge, just outside Hermanus, a small white tower that nods to the wild stretch of coastline historically known as the Cape of Storms. The same Atlantic winds that once threatened ships now cool our vines, carried up from Antarctica by the Benguela Current that gives the estate its name.

We sit at two metres above sea level, with 70 hectares of vines forming the longest stretch of ocean-facing vineyards in South Africa. The breeze, the salt, the slow ripening, the bright fruit aromas, the fresh acidity - all of it ends up in the glass. The new label is our way of saying that more clearly.

Cellar Master Johann Fourie, who has led our winemaking since 2017, selects specific parcels of fruit across the estate - grown on slopes and soils that lend themselves to more fruit-forward, smoother wines. The result is a Lighthouse range that is soft but vibrant, made for earlier release and easy enjoyment.

The other harvest - and why it’s worth seeking out

Tucked between the vines and the water are our olive groves, planted to a trio of classic Tuscan cultivars: Coratina, Frantoio and Leccino. The olives are harvested at peak ripeness and cold-pressed on the estate. We don’t put the resulting oil into mainstream retail. In the UK, you’ll find it at our cellar doors at Leonardslee Lakes & Gardens and Mannings Heath in West Sussex, and through our online shop - nowhere else.

That distinction matters more than most consumers realise. Olive oil is one of the most adulterated agricultural products in the world, and across European supermarkets a significant proportion of bottles labelled “extra virgin” don’t hold up to that grade in independent testing - either because they’ve been cut with cheaper refined oils, or simply because they’ve aged out by the time they reach the shelf.

The truth most people don’t realise is this: real extra virgin olive oil is fresh fruit juice. It is perishable, seasonal, and at its best within months of pressing. The longer the supply chain - grower, broker, blender, importer, distributor, retailer - the more time the polyphenols have to fade. A bottle that has spent eighteen months in transit and another six on a shelf is a very different product from one harvested, pressed and shipped within a single season from a single farm.

A single-origin estate oil shortcuts that chain. You know the grove, the vintage, the soil, the year. The polyphenol count - on which most of the documented health benefits depend - is far higher in a fresh, unblended oil than in a commodity blend.

How it tastes 

On the nose, our oil opens with rich fruit aromas, green olive, apple skin and hints of wild herbs. The palate is smooth yet vibrant - silky and well-rounded, layered with a distinctive spice and a lingering nutty character that evokes almonds and fresh artichoke. A gentle bitterness and peppery lift add complexity and balance.

It is wonderful with crusty sourdough and dukkah, poured generously over grilled prawns, calamari or seared scallops, or finishing a salad of fennel, rocket, citrus or heirloom tomatoes.

The case for the daily spoonful

Penny Streeter OBE, who has owned and shaped Benguela Cove since 2013, is a quiet evangelist for the old Mediterranean habit of taking a daily spoonful of good olive oil - neat, first thing in the morning.

The clinical literature supports the practice. Extra virgin olive oil is rich in monounsaturated fats, vitamin E and polyphenols, including oleocanthal - the compound responsible for the peppery catch at the back of the throat that quality producers treat as a marker of freshness. Sustained daily consumption has been linked to reduced LDL cholesterol, lower blood pressure, improved inflammatory markers, and a measurable role in cardiovascular and neurological protection.

The Cleveland Clinic recommends one and a half to three tablespoons a day for cardiovascular benefit. The European Food Safety Authority has approved a health claim linking olive oil polyphenols to the protection of blood lipids from oxidative stress.

The peppery sting of real extra virgin olive oil is the chemistry doing its work - and it is the first thing to disappear from a bottle that has travelled too far.

Where to find the new-look Lighthouse wines and our olive oil in the UK

The Lighthouse wines are available now from our UK shop. Wine Club members enjoy free delivery on six bottles or more, non-subscribers on twelve.

Our extra virgin olive oil is available alongside the wines at the cellar doors at Leonardslee Lakes & Gardens and Mannings Heath, and through our online shop, while stocks last from this season’s harvest.

Same estate. Same lighthouse. Same coastline in every bottle.