Vin de Constance

Foie gras on brioche with vendage tardive wine jelly.

Whilst still technically in a drought, we had a text book growing season with a slightly higher rainfall than previous years. It was characterised again by cold nights, warm days, wind and very little rainfall. This further aided the berry development and due to the dry conditions leading up to harvest, we had exceptionally healthy fruit.

The wine was aged in a combination of 50 % new French oak, Hungarian oak and French Acacia. It was left for a period of 3 years in barrel on the gross lees before racking out and blending. It spent a further 6 months in tank before bottling.

The approach used to create Vin de Constance is unique to Klein Constantia, tailored from historic information used to make the iconic sweet wines of Constantia in the 1700’s. From these records we have recreated a style of Muscat de Frontignan involving numerous winemaking techniques in order to create the perfect sweet wine. One of the most important aspects is to achieve balance, to do this we harvested the grapes in numerous batches over a 2 month period. Each batch has a precise purpose and is meticulously blended together on numerous occasions to achieve a perfect balance between sugar, alcohol and acidity.

Dating back to 1685 and described as one of the world’s most beautiful wine estates Klein Constantia is set amidst ancient trees on the upper foothills of the Constantiaberg with views across False Bay. The perfect location for cool climate wines Klein Constantia produces some of South Africa’s top wines including one of the world’s best natural sweet wines Vin de Constance.