The Wine
A wine with a mythic past, their 2019 is one of the most elegant, filigreed expressions of this South African icon.
Lifted perfume of orange blossom, honeysuckle, and fresh apricot. On the palate, the wine balances opulence with poised, rich sweetness layered with a vibrant, mouthwatering acidity.
Layers unfold slowly, candied citrus peel, ripe peach, golden sultana, and a subtle herbal note reminiscent of fresh mint. As it sits in the glass, deeper tones of ginger confit, honeycomb, and a faint hint of vanilla.
The wine provides a long finish featuring citrus zest and an enticing saline minerality that prevents it from being heavy and cloying – part of what has made this wine so appealing for so many centuries. It is sumptuous without excess, luminous rather than dense, and already beautifully expressive despite being able to age for decades.
History: Vin de Constance was first produced in the late 17th century on the slopes of Constantia, just south of Cape Town. It quickly became a sensation across Europe when sweet wines were the leading category of the day.
By the 18th and early 19th centuries it was the wine of kings, poets, and diplomatsfavored by Frederick the Great, Louis XVI, Jane Austen (who recommended it as a salve for a broken heart), and Napoleon (who reportedly requested over 1,000 liters of it each year while exiled on St. Helena). The great writer Charles Dickens included the wine in one of his novels as a symbol of comfort and elegance.
But then when phylloxera and economic decline devastated Europe in the late 1800s, the iconic wine disappeared for over a century. It was not revived until the 1980s when Klein Constantia bought the historic estate and painstakingly reconstructed it in the original style using old records and plans, original vines, and the unique terroir that made the original so prized.
