VIN DE CONSTANCE
2011 Klein Constantia
| Grapes | Muscat |
| Origin | South Africa |
| ABV | 14% |
Most recently, in 2011, the property was bought by Charles Harman and Zdenek Bakala. Prior to that, it was owned by the Jooste family, which acquired it in 1986 and restarted the production of Vin de Constance, after a century of hiatus. The family also set about restoring the property and its wines to their former glory. Klein Constantia’s current owners have also invested heavily in its infrastructure, vineyards and equipment with the firm intention of taking its wines to an even higher level. ‘2011 is the first vintage to be produced under the new regime, so it’s very exciting for us,’ says Klein Constantia’s winemaker Matt Day. ‘2011 produced a small crop of excellent quality. The summer was long, warm and dry; perfect conditions for ripening Vin de Constance’s Muscat de Frontignac grapes.’ ‘In order to improve the freshness of the wine, we decided to reduce the time spent in barrel slightly to 3 years,’ Day continues. ‘The 2011 was aged in mix of French oak, Hungarian oak and Acacia barrels, 60% of which are new.’ Decanter Magazine (Oct 2015)
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Klein Constantia
Vin de Constance comes from the Klein Constantia estate founded in 1695, just 20 miles from Cape Town at the foot of Table Mountain. Most unusually for a ‘New World’ wine, it was big news in Europe throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Napoleon is said to have shipped over bulk quantities of Vin de Constance to St Helena, to allow for about a bottle a day to see him through his exile there, but he was not alone, Louis XVI, Frederick the Great and the discerning gastronomes that made up the Russian Royal family were all more than partial too. Our own dear Jane Austen recommends it in Sense and Sensibility to sooth a broken heart and the more effusive Frenchman, Monsieur Baudelaire, suggests that only the ‘lips of a lover were more heavenly sweet...’ Following its early success the estate’s fortunes changed in the mid nineteenth century – the dreaded Phylloxera devastated the vineyards and the estate went in to rapid decline. Not until 1979 did life get breathed back in to Klein Constantia when a local family picked up the pieces, planted new vines and started the revival of this once illustrious wine estate – the revival has continued as new owners took the reins in 2010, with deep pockets and huge ambition. You can read David Porter's latest blog piece on the recent 2008 Vin de Constance Tasting with Matt Day the Winemaker Here
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