An elite sweet wine
It’s among the world’s elite sweet wines, at a less-than-elite price. From the lower slopes of the Constantiaberg range in South Africa’s Cape Peninsula, Klein Constantia make a sweet wine that rivals the great sweet wines of France and Germany for intensity and complexity.
Vin de Constance enjoys a long history. It was once a favourite of European royalty and America’s founding fathers. In the late nineteenth century it disappeared from the scene, a victim of economics, tariffs, changing tastes and vine disease. But in the 1980s it staged a comeback, and has been working its way back to its former prominence since then, gathering awards and accolades on every side.
Matt Day has been the winemaker here since 2012. He likes to swap winemaking tips with Sandrine Garbay of Chateau Yquem, though in some ways these are very different wines; where Yquem depends on botrytis, Vin de Constance is made from raisining and raisined grapes. The picking season at Klein Constantia estate can last an astonishing three months; the first grapes to come in bring the acidity that underpins the greatest sweet wines, then come grapes bringing sugar and ripe flavours, and finally raisins with the most concentrated flavours. Fermentation can take up to a year; then there are three years of maturation in a mix of new oak and acacia barrels, and large old foudres. It’s a close-to-unique process that results in a remarkably complex sweet wine.
Extraordinary aromas of white peaches, apricots, vanilla and flowers. Full-bodied and very sweet with so much sweet and dried fruit, such as apricots and tangerines, yet it maintains citrusy freshness and texture, with a long, very sweet finish. Always energetic and vivid. Great length to this. Goes on for minutes. It’s a sweet wine to drink when young, to marvel over the intensity and verve, yet also one to age for decades. Drink or hold.
98 points, James Suckling, jamessuckling.com
