Single Bottle Price £60.00. Tasting Notes: Deeply complex and robust, the nose is layered with Seville orange marmalade, honeysuckle and ginger. Unctuously full bodied with intense flavours ranging from dried mango to fresh vanilla and lively citrus zest. These allow for the perfect balance on the palate, showing restrained concentration with a pithy astringency and a mouth-watering finish Vintage 2016: The 2016 vintage was earlier than anticipated due to El Niño causing a warm and dry weather build up to harvest, resulting in faster ripening fruit. Still it yielded berries with concentrated flavours and well balanced acidity. Fortunately, in the Constantia Valley we receive enough rainfall, even during the driest of seasons and are safeguarded with sufficient moisture in the soils, unlike some warmer regions in the country. We are also protected from the extreme heat spikes by our proximity to the ocean, experiencing predominantly cool night time temperatures allowing for the perfect and slow raisining conditions for the development of ripeness while retaining a good natural acidity. Winemaking: Now with a completely renovated cellar, we have made use of dedicated tanks intended for perfect maceration and fermentation of the Vin de Constance. Each batch we harvest – from the riper berries with good acidity to the raisins for sugar concentration – forms a unique component and as such is kept separate and treated differently until the final blending process which can take up to 6 months. Maturation was an average of 3 years, with 50% in 500L barrels and 50% in brand new French Oak Foudres. Maturation: The wine was aged in a combination of 50 % new French oak, Hungarian oak and French Acacia. It was left for a period of 3 years in barrel on the gross lees before racking out and blending. It spent a further 6 months in tank before bottling. Wine Analysis: Alc: 14% RS:164,8g/l pH: 3.7 TA: 6.5g/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.