2009 Klein Constantia Vin de Constance

It is made from shrivelled Muscat grapes which spend a few years hibernating in oak barrels before being bottled in quaint, ancient, unique flagons! It is one of the world’s greatest sweet wines (it’s in my top six). It is certainly the finest (unfortified) Muscat on the planet. It tastes like liquidised rainbows, unicorns, orange groves and comets combined. It also ages for an eternity, which serves to underline its mythical status. I have tasted every vintage since the modern era release of 1986 and they are all different, glorious and fascinating...an otherworldly backbone of amaro-style bitterness which completely blew me away. I am a vinous masochist and so I would love to see more and more of this thrilling element in VdC, in due course, because I adore the strictness which it brings to the mind-boggling orange brûlée fruit. The 2009 is wondrously corseted and this makes for compelling tasting. 19++/20 points

The 2009 Vin de Constance Natural Sweet Wine had been Wine had been in bottle around six weeks when I tasted it at the estate. It was harvested over three months from 25 separate batches, each bunch selected by hand and raised for six months to one year in 500-liter barrels. Matthew told me that he is looking for less time in barrel and more time in bottle before release. Then again, the 2003 is still in barrel! This is the first vintage Matthew Day has been involved with from start to finish and he sees it as a cross between the 2007 and 2008. It has an intense marmalade, dried apricot, beeswax and honeycomb scents, your quintessential Vin de Constance nose, and it seems to muster more vigor with aeration. The palate is well-balanced with a spicy tincture on the entry, slightly oxidative, with nutty notes infusing the thickly layered honeyed fruit with touches of papaya and mango toward the finish with touches of rosewater and gripe water on the aftertaste. Another superb Vin de Constance from Matthew Day. 94 points