Sweet but bright, unfortified, with fresh Muscat lift
Ageing
Decades
Serving
8–10 °C
The oldest New World wine of note and one of history's legendary sweet wines: from the 1680s, the sweet Muscat of Constantia was shipped to the courts of Europe and prized by Napoleon, Frederick the Great and the characters of Jane Austen alike, ranked beside Tokaji and Sauternes among the greatest wines on earth.
Made from late-picked Muscat Blanc, unfortified, it survived only in legend after phylloxera and war destroyed it — until Klein Constantia revived Vin de Constance in the 1980s from the original slopes below Table Mountain. Sweet yet bright, it is a living taste of the eighteenth century.