2018 Klein Constantia Vin de Constance Natural Sweet Wine (500ml)

Muscat from Constantia, South Africa

B-21 Top Recommendation
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Produced from the historic South African estate of Klein Constantia, no description seems to come close to accurately portraying the ethereal, otherworldly experience of tasting the one-of-a-kind Vin de Constance. With Decanter declaring "Vin de Constance, one of the world’s most legendary sweet wines, has entered a new chapter of its centuries old existence with the 2012 vintage," this limited offering is a rare opportunity to secure an allocation of multiple vintages over the last decade of the world's leading late harvest Muscat wine beginning with the extraordinary 2012, available in the estate's distinctive 500ml and 1.5L bottles at an equally exceptional price.

Founded in 1684 in the valley north of False Bay and just south of Cape Town, Klein Constantia was first planted by Simon Van der Stel (founder of Stellenbosch), who recognized that the region's decomposed granite soils and cooling maritime breezes were ideal for growing grapes. By the mid-1700s, the Vin de Constance had attracted a fan base that would come to include George Washington, Charles Dickens and Queen Victoria, with author Jane Austen immortalizing its "healing powers" and the exiled Napoleon Bonaparte requesting only a single glass of Vin de Constance on his deathbed. But economic upheavals paired with the decimation of the vineyards by phylloxera in the late 1800s sent Constantia into decline for more than a century, until a portion of the historic original estate was revived in 1986. With the estate's change in ownership in 2010, a modern renaissance has begun, and as Vinous critic Neal Martin declared, Klein Constantia "is undergoing a quiet revolution." Now led by managing director Hans Astrom, formerly at Hess Collection and winemaker Matt Day, whose experience includes Elderton in Barossa Valley, Dancing Hares in Napa, and St. Emilon's Chateau Belefont Belcier, the Vin de Constance is sourced from the estate's 16 hectares of Muscat de Frontignan grapes. Produced without botrytis, Day achieves optimal ripeness by requiring up to 30 passes through the vineyard over the course of the two-month harvest, with the first batches picked to preserve their bright acidity and fermented to dryness for a base wine, while the last grapes are harvested by a special team as individual raisins that have dehydrated on the vine, concentrating sugars. Meticulously blended over time to achieve an integrated balance of sugar, alcohol and acidity, the Vin de Constance is vinified in Klein Constantia's new custom-built cellar with Day limiting the time spent in barrel to three years to enhance freshness, utilizing a mix of new and used French oak, acacia barrels and large format foudres.

Showing amazing consistency yet constantly evolving vintage after vintage, the Vin de Constance is an intense, energetic wine boasting a long and immensely complex finish, balancing inseparable multiple layers of elegant, honeyed sweetness with harmonious acidity. Standing among the greatest sweet wines of the world and continuing to evolve over the next decades, this is an extraordinary opportunity to secure the seductive Vin de Constance at an exceptional price, with multiple vintages offered in a distinctively shaped bottle resembling the original hand-blown design, one that is as unique as the wine itself.

98JS #98 Top 100

98JA

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 (Sep 2021)

#98 - James Suckling Top 100 of 2021

The most gorgeous mix of straw, powerful citrus, apricot, fresh juicy white pear and peach, tons of stone fruits and spice, graphite and smoke. As ever this is both subtle and overpowering, managing push and pull and so so good - both lusciously sweet and a breath of fresh air running through your palate. As I say every time I drink Vin de Constance, if every sweet wine tasted like this, there would be no sales crisis in the category. Drink now, or allow the flavours to deepen further over the next decade.

98 points, Jane Anson (Sep 2021)

Alcohol By Volume: 14.0%

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$59.98

Compare At: $64.99

10 bottles in stock. Ships in 1 to 2 business days.

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