Single Bottle Price £75.00. Tasting Notes: Golden and bright in colour with aromas of marmalade and nutmeg on the nose. The palate is fresh and creamy with a rich sweetness that is complimented by good acidity, bringing the wine into perfect balance and ending with a lengthy and vibrant finish. Vintage 2012: The 2012 represents the beginning of a new journey in the story of Vin de Constance. This is the first of many amazing vintages to come under new management and ownership at Klein Constantia and was truly an exciting vintage to be apart of. A long, cool summer provided for one of the most stressful but successful vintages to date which ranged for a record 3 months starting at the end of January and ending at the end of April. Winemaking: The 2012 harvest was split into six portions providing us with six unique and exciting building blocks. Each portion was hand sorted and then made using a specific technique according to their individual traits and characteristics. Having finished harvesting so late in the season the skins had completely disintegrated into a mass pulp after maceration which meant that the pressing process took weeks in our brand new basket press. Fermentation then took up to 6 months and stopped completely naturally once the the perfect combination of sugar to alcohol was achieved. Maturation: The wine was aged in a combination of 60 % new French oak, Hungarian oak and French Acacia. It was left for a period of 2.5 years in barrel on the gross lees before racking out and blending, the wine then spent a further 6 months in tank before bottling. Wine Analysis: Alc: 14.3% RS:160g/l pH: 3.6 TA: 7g/l Background Information: First produced over 300 years ago as ‘Constantia’, Kings vied for possession of this wine; Louis Philippe sent emissaries from France to fetch it; Napoleon drank it on the island of St Helena to find solace in his lonely exile; Frederick the Great and Bismarck ordered it; Charles Dickens’ character Edwin Drood found support in it and Jane Austen recommended Constantia for its “healing powers on a disappointed heart”. Vin de Constance today is one of the world’s greatest sweet wines. Made from 100% Muscat de Frontignan. Production of Vin de Constance is extremely limited and only occurs in exceptional years – there was no 2010 vintage.