Constantia is the rare wine region that wears its past and present with equal ease. Cradled between the Constantiaberg and the ocean breezes that sweep in from False Bay, its quilt of green slopes seems impossibly close to Cape Town. This is the oldest wine-growing region in the Southern Hemisphere, a name that has graced the tables of emperors, inspired the pages of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, and poured into Napoleon’s glass each day on St Helena. To drink Constantia is to drink Cape history reframed in the present.
The story begins in 1685, when the Cape’s governor Simon van der Stel secured land behind Table Mountain and named it Constantia. His vines of Muscadel and Steen set the stage for what would, in the centuries that followed, achieve legendary status as the sweet Constantia wines. Hendrik Cloete’s careful custodianship in the late 18th century elevated them to fame across Europe, with Johannes Colyn exporting the first shipments to the Netherlands. For decades, these wines became a benchmark of indulgence, sipped in royal courts and written into literature as symbols of refinement. The glory years dimmed in the 19th century when phylloxera and powdery mildew ravaged the vineyards. For more than a century, the Constantia name drifted in memory, until a renaissance in the 1980s restored its prominence, not only reviving the fabled Vin de Constance but also establishing dry table wines that would define the region anew.
If Constantia’s narrative is classic, its terroir is the twist in the tale. Vineyards climb steeply up the Constantiaberg to heights of 400 metres, where east- and south-facing slopes take in the gentle morning sun and avoid the brunt of the afternoon heat. The proximity to the ocean — no more than seven kilometres to either coast — ensures that cooling sea air flows into the valley, bringing cloud cover, humidity and those infamous south-easterly winds. These elements slow ripening, keep acidity bright and preserve the delicacy that sets Constantia wines apart.
It is little wonder, then, that Sauvignon Blanc has become Constantia’s calling card. Across its compact 420 hectares under vine, nearly half is devoted to this grape, which thrives on the valley’s slopes. Taste a young Constantia Sauvignon and you find luminous citrus, stone fruit and a saline edge, underpinned by wet-granite minerality; give it time in bottle and those flavours evolve into lanolin, wax and chalk. But while white wines may have shaped the valley’s reputation, the reds are quietly commanding attention of their own. Sun-exposed vineyards allow Bordeaux varieties to ripen with balance. Taste across producers and you’ll sense a golden thread: altitude delivering verve, aspect delivering detail, granite and clay delivering texture, and thoughtful cellar work giving the wines room to speak.
What endures through it all is the sense that Constantia is both rooted and restless. Its winemakers draw on three centuries of heritage while pushing their vineyards and cellars towards ever finer detail. At Belthazar, we celebrate that story at the table. Book your table and taste Constantia’s past and present in one sitting — because some wines are not only made to be drunk, but to be remembered.
9 October 2025
