Grand Constance - A celebration of a piece of history

A grand wine – with a grand heritage – perfect for any occasion

It is not often that one gets the opportunity to savour a wine that is not only delicious but which is also possibly one of the most celebrated wines in history, and which has a story behind it that cannot be boasted by any others.

Groot Constantia, a wine estate in South Africa which is the oldest wine farm in the country at 332 years old this year, produces a premium brand sweet wine called Grand Constance which has a history that dates back to the Napoleonic era. 

Before his death in 1821, Napoleon enjoyed ‘Grand Constance’ as his standard tipple while in exile. It is recorded that King Louis Philippe of France was a regular client. The British Royal family, as well as Frederic the Great of Prussia, have also all appreciated the famous sweet wine of Constantia.
 

Charles Dickens celebrated it in Edwin Drood, Jane Austen's character recommended it as a cure for a broken heart in Sense and Sensibility and Charles Baudelaire compared Constantia wine to his lover‘s lips in his most famous volume of poems, Les Fleurs du Mal.

The recreation of Grand Constance

Under the guidance of awarded wine maker Boela Gerba, Groot Constantia took the decision to recreate the renowned Grand Constance wine – far from an easy task and one which entailed much experimentation, sampling and laboratory grade testing.  

Finally, armed with a formula that would recreate a wine very similar to the Grand Constance from 200 years ago, and adjusted to appeal to more modern tastes, Boela took a leap of faith and using a blend of red and white Muscat de Frontignan grapes from the block right next to the Groot Constantia Manor house they resurrected this grand old wine.

Once the contents were on track, it came time to create the bottle in which it would be presented.  Grand Constance required a bottled that honoured its legacy and so needed to be as historically accurate as possible.

A five year journey to recreate a suitable bottle for the revitalised Grand Constance wine started with a bottle seal stamped with the words 'Constantia Wyn' and a photograph of a bottle with a similar seal from a Maritime Museum in Delaware on the East Coast of the United States. The second clue was shards of glass that the museum traced to the cargo of the Severn which was stranded on the beach at Lewis in the Delaware Bay in 1774. After scouring the internet, Boela discovered an intact bottle with the same seal in Paris but was unable to secure any further information from the owner.

From this one photograph, an engineering firm redesigned the Grand Constance bottle. The next decision was what size the bottle should be - in the end it was agreed that a standardised 375ml bottle was required.

Initially local and international glass blowers were approached to recreate the bottle, but no one felt up to the task. Eventually the bottle was produced by one of the biggest glass manufacturers in South Africa.

A storm in a wine glass

The “new” Grand Constance was launched in 2010 and generated a furore of local and international interest. Boela received emails from Belgium, Sweden and Germany regarding wine bottles with similar 'Groot Constantia Wyn' seals.

The seal from Germany was unearthed in an excavation in Meiningen and was evidentaly far older that the other examples. The Belgium bottles were discovered in 2011 in the cellar of a castle near Namur that dates back to the period between 1760 - 1840. The bottle from Sweden was found at the bottom of the ocean near Stockholm by a diver in the 1940's.

Recently an extremely rare Grand Constance bottle from the 1821 vintage returned home to Groot Constantia and can be viewed in the Cloete Cellar where it was produced by owners and workers nearly two centuries ago.  The Cloete Cellar is the only place where the famous Grand Constance wine was ever produced, and now forms an even more integral part of Groot Constantia’s unique new Visitors Route, with half of the cellar featuring a museum, whilst the other half is atasting room where visitors can have a unique heritage experience of the Groot Constantia’s wines.

Grand Constance raking in the accolades

The “new” Grand Constance has not let its ancestor down and continues to rake in the awards, having achieved the highest possible honour at the 2016 Decanter Asia Wine Awards where, surpassing Gold, Grand Constance received Platinum for being the Best South African Sweet Wine - achieving a rare 98 points out of a possible 100, and being classed as “exceptional” in what is Asia's leading wine competition.

Grand Constance is no stranger to being awarded, with the 2015 vintage receiving a Grand Gold award at the globally-renowned Monde Selection International Wine Contest last year.  Most recently this historically significant wine was awarded a Gold Medal and
a position in the Top 10 Muscats in the world list at the The 17th annual Muscats du Monde wine competition.  Grand Constance also achieved a Best In Its Class and Gold awards at the Top 100 SA Wine awards and the Michaelangelo International Wine and Spirits Awards.

Groot Constantia’s wines, which are hand-crafted in small volumes,  in general continue to rake in the awards, with the estate having won over 100 top accolades in the past 10 years alone. 

Grand Constance is the perfect accompaniment to any festive occasion or celebration.

 

For more information visit www.stellezvine.com.sg or connect with Stellez Vine via social media on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @stellezvine.