Constantia Wine Valley

Simon van der Stel was granted this land in 1685 and planted vines on the eastern slopes of the peninsula, making Constantia the oldest wine-producing valley in the southern hemisphere and, unusually, one that is now inside a city. Its fame in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries rested on Constantia, a sweet wine from late-picked muscat that was shipped to European courts, appears in Jane Austen and Dickens, and was reportedly ordered by Napoleon in exile on St Helena. Phylloxera and the collapse of the estates ended production, and it was recreated at Klein Constantia in 1986 as Vin de Constance. The valley today has a handful of estates within twenty minutes of the city centre, cooled by south-easterly wind off False Bay, producing sauvignon blanc and semillon of a precision the warmer inland districts cannot match, alongside the sweet wine.

What you actually see

• The 1685 grant - the oldest wine valley in the southern hemisphere.
• Vin de Constance - a sweet muscat wine recreated in 1986 after a century's gap.
• Wine inside a city - estates twenty minutes from the Cape Town centre.
• Cool-climate whites - sauvignon blanc and semillon shaped by False Bay wind.

When to go

All year; February and March for harvest. A day.

Honest expectations

There are only a handful of estates, so it is a short route. Tasting fees and restaurant prices here are among the highest in the country. Weekends are busy with Cape Town residents. Vin de Constance is expensive and often limited to small pours.

Nearby

Kirstenbosch is north; Muizenberg and False Bay are south-east.