Getting Fresh in Constantia
When I first moved to Cape Town and thought about Constantia, my mind was filled with images of botoxed ladies who lunch, old money and a nest of well to-dos in a leafy green valley. I was aware of the historic importance of the valley, but details were scant. Today, botoxed ladies who lunch still wonder about in my imagined view of the valley, but they are all sipping on excellent Sauvignon Blancs, and retire in the evenings with elegant but powerful red blends (and toss their car keys into big bowls at any opportunity). I also took more of an interest in the place when I read that Dickens, Baudelaire, Austen, and Napoleon all drank the sweet wines of Constantia. This fitted in well with one of my personal rules, “If it’s good enough for Baudelaire, it’s good enough for me.”
It is remarkable that we have a wine region that produces such good wines slap bang in the city. Because of this, I highly recommend it for wine trips. I took a bunch of people from Getaway Magazine on a little wine trip around the Constantia region last year, and hot damn! We visited a few Cape Point Vineyards (not quite Constantia, but it’s just around the corner) including Steenberg, Klein Constantia, Buitenwerwachting, and the day was chock full of delicious wines – so full in fact we ended up crashing a botoxed wives’ dress up party wearing sombreros and mustaches late in the evening. That’s another story, but it does remind me of why I really get a kick out of Constantia.
I dig it because it reminds me of The Great Gatsby Era: the unashamedly rich, the hedonistic frivolities, the swingers, the hell raisers, the addicts, fine clothes, expensive wine, and the unspoken rule that appearances have to be kept up. You think it’s a quiet lush and leafy suburb, but behind closed doors the gloves come off, as well as everything else.
This is not unprecedented. In 1913, Abraham Lochner de Villiers and his American millionairess wife, Clara Hussey bought Klein Constantia and started partying like it was nineteen-ninety… no, wait, but you know what I mean. Like Jay Gatsby, they would role out the caviar, peacocks and bands – revelling in their wealth like scrooge McDuck going for a dip. If F. Scott Fitzgerald was South African, he would have set his stories in Constantia.
This weekend the Constantia Fresh Festival is being held on the grounds of Buiitenverwachting and – having attended the festival for the last two years – it’s a similarly a grand affair. The idea of the festival is to celebrate the Constantia valley with a focus on Sauvignon Blanc. The festival runs on 24 and 25 February. The Friday is taken up with a big, focused tasting. This is for the wine nerds and the deep of pocket, with around 40-odd wines from around the world being tasted alongside those from Constantia. This year’s theme is red-blends. The evening sees a slap-up dinner cooked by Peter Templehoff of Cellars Hohenort. These are pricey affairs – tickets are R1500 a pop, but the wines are seriously world-class and are not in short supply.
The Saturday is a more relaxed affair, with the best Sauvignon Blancs in the country being tasted on the lawns of Buitenverwachting. Each region teams up with a top chef who creates mini dishes to pair with the wines. Basically for R400 you get to wander about all day eating and drinking to your hearts content. It’s rad. Later in the afternoon the Constantia producers bring out their red wines to go with the meat from the braai that is put on. A band plays, people lounge on hay bales, drink more wine, and swing like it’s 1929.
But why celebrate Constantia Sauvignon Blanc? In my humble opinion it is one of the areas of the country that consistently produces top quality Sauvignon Blancs with a real sense of place. They taste like Constantia. There is always a specific mineral, green, herbaceous streak that runs through the wine, it’s quite distinct. I chatted to a couple of wine-makers to see if I was talking kak, or if there really is a specific Constantia character that comes out. I popped in to see JD Pretorious, winemaker at Steenberg, and he told me that Constantia Sauvignon Blancs are “minerality focused [with] good natural acidity, they have a herbaceousness, but not a lean and mean green herbaceousness; there is always a herbal element to it. That’s something unique to all the wines in Constantia.”
This has to do with the specific climate that Constantia has, it is generally cooler than many of the other South African wine regions, and well suited to Sauvignon Blanc. Stiaan Cloete, viticulturist at Klein Constantia said that for them temperatures “never reach above 27 degrees on top of the mountain” where their top Sauvignon grapes are grown. The combination of soil type, aspect, and climate of the Constantia Valley combine to produce really stylish Sauvignon Blanc that has the ability to age beautifully.
I’ve tasted the famous 1986 Klein Constantia Sauvignon Blanc a couple of times, and it really is a remarkable, thought provoking wine; a wine that reminds you that drinking all your Sauvignon Blanc in the year it is produced is foolhardy. And if you ask around on Saturday you may get lucky as some producers have been known to keep an older something something under the table.
These sort of events appeal to me, as there is focus. The big wine shows are okay if you have a plan and get there early, before they turn into a big piss-up. Without a plan you can get easily lost in the 100’s of wines and walk away without really learning a thing. Here the focus is on Sauvignon Blanc, and if you go, my advice is to think about how the Constantia Sauvignon Blancs differ in style to the other wines that are there. See if you can pick out a similarity in the wines from Botox Valley. And if that’s too much like work, just drink eat and party as if you are Jay Gatsby. Wear a suit, put on some pearls, and I’ll see you there.
I have been given three sets of double tickets to give away for the Saturday walk around tasting at Buitenverwachting. All you need to do is post in the comments what first comes to your mind when you think of Constantia. We’ll email the winners on Friday morning.
For more details on the event check out the Constantia Fresh website
This week’s edition of Wine Harry and Song on 2oceansvibe Radio on Thursday morning at 10h30 will have us chatting to Laars Maack, owner of Buitenverwachting and Pieter Templehoff, Executive Chef at the Cellars-Hohenort. We’ll also be giving a few tickets away then too.
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23 Comments
jen
21 Feb 2012
In no particular order: The Young and the Restless style glossy camera appearance, cute squirrels, amazingly crisp and delicious white wines, apple-green leafy streets, young ladies getting abducted and held for ransom (?), rolling hills, my recent 10k Constantia road race (and not waking up in time to make the 21k that i actually entered), and ducks!
Bruce
21 Feb 2012
Constantia = Dappled sunlight, oaks, loads of crisp Sauv Blanc, music, friends, family.
jen
21 Feb 2012
In no particular order: A glossy view – in the style of The Young and The Restless camera work, cute squirrels, crisp and delicious white wines, roads lined with leafy, green apple coloured leaves, v-neck jerseys, my recent 10k Constantia road race (but more so the 21k that i didn’t wake up in time for and missed) and ducks!
Kieron Piper
21 Feb 2012
BMW X5′s, personal trainers, dog minders and nannies. chunky silver jewellry and flowing earth toned garments purchased at the likes of County Road, Poetry, trenery and rosenworth. And a metallic fridge filled with delights from Woolworth’s, purchased on account of course….
Kieron Piper
21 Feb 2012
Oh, and how dare I forget mummy dates at Melissa’s while the kids are at Karate. and of course, La Colombe… (spelling?)
jen
21 Feb 2012
oops.. feel free to remove this second one
Jan
21 Feb 2012
Bored housewives sipping on great wine, while sharing a R200 salad at Melissa’s.
Jonathan
21 Feb 2012
Oak trees, fine dining, wine, luxury cars, mansions and lazy Sunday afternoons
Sam
21 Feb 2012
Winter and red wine at the Alphen, Sauvignon Blanc and beautiful horses at the sports ground, cricket and some chenin, club rugby and some sherry. Watching the the Constantia version of Desperate Houswives – Daring Divorcees at Simons with a bottle of fizz ( MCC) The beautiful sense of space and watching the vineyards change with the seasons at Uitsig and Buitenverwachting….I could carry on forever
Andre
21 Feb 2012
Cut grass!
Pauline
21 Feb 2012
The feeling of history and the importance of age when entering the valley from Constantia Nek. Knowing that instead of driving into Stellenbosch, we have an incredible valley on doorstep with great wines! Driving with the windows wide open along roads lined with leafy oak trees providing dappled shade. Horse riding on the green belt and a surprise picnic that awaits you under the tree. Walking the dog through the vineyards and pretending that you are the only person around because it is that quiet. Enjoying a glass of wine on the verander at Constantia Glen whilst watching the mountain change colour in the dusk and finally topping this all off the next day by remindising with your friends over a coffee at Melissas in the Village.
I heart Constantia!
Pauline
21 Feb 2012
The feeling of history and the importance of age when entering the valley from Constantia Nek. Knowing that instead of driving into Stellenbosch, we have an incredible valley on doorstep with great wines! Driving with the windows wide open along roads lined with leafy oak trees providing dappled shade. Horse riding on the green belt and a surprise picnic that awaits you under the tree. Walking the dog through the vineyards and pretending that you are the only person around because it is that quiet. Enjoying a glass of wine on the verander at Constantia Glen whilst watching the mountain change colour in the dusk and finally topping this all off the next day by remindising with your friends over a coffee at Melissas in the Village.
I heart Constantia!
joe
21 Feb 2012
A teenage girl with a boob job half-heartedly chasing a horse she can’t control – “well Papa will just have to buy me another one…”
Toads croaking up a nocturnal storm when it stops raining
Sprinklers pumping out “borehole” water 24/7
Being bitten by an escaped Ridgeback (what else?!) and then being told by the owner that he “owned the road”
A distant cacophony of house alarms and lawn mowers on a Sunday afternoon
Walking from one wine-tasting to the next through the vineyards
A guard dozing in his little hut at the end of the garden
And of course beautiful, old, white-washed monuments where some rather nice wines are made…
ps if any of these impressions sound exaggerated I can personally vouch for them!
Pieter
21 Feb 2012
Peddlars, awkard lunches with the in-laws and having to explain you fine to drive back to town after 2 bottles of local produce.. Eye candy in the Village, not sure whether it’s their kids or grankids. Leafy overhangs in quiet streets. And last but not least a sense of real serenity at any of the fine winefarms in the area..
James Grey
21 Feb 2012
Money
Greg Lillie
21 Feb 2012
Work is a sideline, Live the dream
Andre
21 Feb 2012
Cougar night at Pedlars
Andre
21 Feb 2012
Cougar night at Pedlars!
Mel
21 Feb 2012
Surely one of the funniest reads I picked up for a while ..by chance wondering what it was all about and realizing in the end the following: there is a whole new world right on my doorstep I still have to discover. My thoughts was only Franschhoek and Stellies was the place to go for a wine tour with other fellow not so sober friends. Awesome fantastic hilarious and a must see area and event to explore
Rose
22 Feb 2012
the smell of horseshit in the morning
Anton
22 Feb 2012
Swingers Parties, Cocaine, Bollinger, boob jobs, Discovery 4′s, aupairs, Malawian ‘house boys’, CCTV, Bombay sapphire, Woolies, Constantia Glenn Savvy B, WetPups, Bishops and eventual divorce.
scotty
22 Feb 2012
Beautiful summer days with loads of shady spots to enjoy your Friday after-work pot at the majestic watering hole of Peddlars.
Rosemaryanny
23 Feb 2012
Great article Harry.
When I think of Constantia I think- of old gravel, almost neon new green vine shoots, sprays of dill and rosemary growing wild by the side of the road, the almost imperceptible taste of sea-salt borne on the mist, baking hot pine needles, over-ripe avocados rotting in the street, a faint whiff of jasmine and a touch of horse manure- in short I think of those fabulous white wines.
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