Klein Constantia

Since new owners took over in 2011, sweeping changes at this historic Cape estate have transformed the wines, vineyards, cellar and 18th-century homestead. John Stimpfig pays a visit

ThERE wAs AN almost audible intake of breath in January 2011 when the British financier Charles harman and the CzechAmerican investor and entrepreneur Zdenek Bakala bought Klein Constantia. The concern in the Cape was understandable. Both tycoons lived overseas, were unknown quantities and neither had any experience of running a wine estate. In short, nobody quite knew what was going to happen next.

Of course, what really raised eyebrows was that the estate in question was Klein Constantia, one of the jewels in the Cape’s wine crown. It was on these decomposed granite soils just 8km north of False Bay that simon Van der stel created the Constantia estate in 1685, which in turn gave birth to the unique and legendary sweet Vin de Constance. Over the next two centuries, it didn’t just become a favoured wine of kings and emperors, it was also celebrated and immortalised in literature by the likes of Austen, Dickens and Baudelaire.

however, periodically, Klein Constantia had also fallen on hard times. For a century, the property produced no wine following the devastating arrival of phylloxera. During the 1930s, its affluent, Gatsby-like American owners held plenty of glamorous parties. But still no wine was forthcoming.

The modern renaissance began in 1979 when Duggie Jooste bought the estate and set about making the iconic Vin de Constance again after a 100-year hiatus. he and his son Lowell also produced a range of dry and sparkling wines from the higher reaches of the estate. But it was a herculean task, and by 2010 the family’s energy and resources had been all but spent.