VIN DE CONSTANCE
2021 Klein Constantia
| Grapes | Muscat |
| Origin | South Africa, Western Cape |
| ABV | 14% |
Powerful apricot, chamomile, white tea, pineapple, preserved lemon, white flowers, gentle gunsmoke, intense, concentrated, vivid, just superb quality, spinning and stretching out on the finish. A wonderful vintage of Vin de Constance. Matthew Day winemaker, owners are Zdenek Bakala, Charmes Harman, Hubert de Boüard, Bruno Prats and Hans Astrom. Drinking range: 2024 - 2050 Rating: 98 Jane Anson, www.janeanson.com (Jul 2024)
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DELIVERY SERVICE
We offer free nationwide delivery on all orders over £150 (excluding Highlands & Islands). Express Delivery options also available.A long, relatively cool season where harvest was two weeks later than usual, and this is displaying exceptional tension and switchback textures of opulence and acidity. So poised and well judged, waves of bitter marmalade, lemon rind, mango, pineapple, crème caramel and luscious dried apricot flavours, such intensity and length, touch of nutmeg, flint and walnut on the finish. Matthew Day winemaker. 18 months in 50% new 500L Hungarian and French oak barrels, followed by 16 months in large oak casks, 173g/l residual sugar. Drinking range: 2025 - 2045 Rating: 97 Jane Anson, www.janeanson.com (Feb 2025)
Dried apples, apricots, honey and light caramel with some flowers on both the nose and palate. Medium-bodied, sweet but not overpowering, showing lots of freshness and focus. Tangy at the end, but so polished and caressing on the palate. Drink or hold. Rating: 95 James Suckling, www.jamessuckling.com (Nov 2024)
The 2021 Vin de Constance comes from 27 different batches with two weeks on the skins. With 173.5 grams per liter of residual sugar (the same as 2020), it presents a very pure bouquet, effervescent with quince, orange zest and just a hint of marmalade—wonderfully delineated and focused. The palate is supremely well balanced with a viscous entry and extremely good weight in the mouth, but the acidity (6.3 grams per liter) keeps this on its toes. Quite spicy on the finish, this lingers long in the mouth, and I can still feel it 30 seconds after it has departed. There’s real freshness and electricity here. Outstanding. Drinking range: 2025 - 2045 Rating: 97 Neal Martin, www.vinous.com (Sept 2024)
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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