Vin De Constance - Jewel from the Cape, South Africa

The first time I heard of a dessert wine was back in the early 90's, when an old friend of my told me hysterically (I think she was yanking her hair while talking to me) how good this honey liked sweet nectar was. She said it was so good that she had to restrain herself from drinking it too fast as only a small portion was presented to her.....

The wine in question here was actually a Canadian Icewine. A Riesling Icewine from Inniskillin Winery, in the Niagara Region to be exact. I was living in Toronto, Ontario at the time and just started discovering the wonderful and blurry world of wine. Toronto was a good place to learn wine because it was a modern cosmopolitan with many old and new world ethnicities, which meant melting pot of cuisines to go with wines, but most important of all, Ontario was importing vast number of wines from all over the world.

The first wave of migration (invasion some might say as the aboriginal people of Canada were the North American Indians, Inuits & Métis ) were mainly the French & English. Italian ( Toronto is the city with the largest Italian population outside of Italy in the world ), Chinese, Japanese, Jewish, Koreans, Vietnamese, South Indians, Caribbeans, Russian, Polish and many other immigrants come over the years, due mainly to Canada's liberal immigration policy. Wine drinking culture was bought to Canada from the Old World very early on during the first wave of migration. I still remember my Italian landlord offering me this golden and murky glass of home made white wine with big alcohol content every month when I went to pay my rent. These home made wines were largely made form grape juice trucked from California and made in some Italian family's basement !

Niagara, Ontario's wine region is actually on the same latitude as Burgundy in France but without the prestige obviously. The variety of grapes and wine styles were limited due to its very cold climate and restricted wine growing areas, and as a result, wines were imported from around the world to cater to the demand of the new immigrants. Except for its Icewine, Canadian wines were largely insignificant and relatively expensive outside of Canada.

Unlike many wine producing regions from around the world. Torontonian were happy marrying their ethnically diversed cuisine with wines from Europe, US, New Zealand, Australia, Chile and even China. The province of Ontario was the largest importing body of wine and liquor in the world as it monopolized and controlled the entire importation and movement of wine and liquor in the province through LCBO or Liquor Control Board of Ontario. For people in the wine trade, this was like a Mafioso setup, as LCBO got a cut from very drop of alcohol sold in the province. For me, an enthusiast and a Sommelier student, it was heaven on earth as I had access to thousands of wines & liquors from around the world. 10,000sqft was not an uncommon size for some of the LCBO outlets. I used to wonder hours at a time in these outlets, looking and touching some of the world's most famous wines; Super Tuscans, Bordeaux First Growths, Great America Cabernets, Vintage Ports, Sauternes, or just your run of the mill type wines and liquors.

Simply, I was getting great exposure to all kinds of wines, including dessert wines of all sort; German Icewine, German & Austrian Trokenbeerenauslese, Canadian Icewine, Tokaji, Sauternes, Barsac, Vin Santo, Ports, and many others. I could see and had these wines in my hands whenever I visited my neighbourhood LCBO.

There was one wine however that I have heard and read about but could not find in LCBO, a legendary wine from the Cape in South Africa was no where to be found in LCBO. Upon further inquisition, I was told by my buddies in the LCBO that Canada could not import wines from South Africa because of the Apartheid Regime of Pretoria! Vin de Contance was a famous and highly sought after dessert wine as far back as 3 Centuries ago. It was not until 1998, that I had the chance to taste this magnificent dessert wine from the Cape, and where did I find this wine? in a Makro Hypermarket in Johannesburg !! Go Figure !

The original Vin de Constance, a natural sweet wine from today's Klein Constancia Winery in Cape, South Africa was the creation of Simon van der Stal, Governor of the Cape of Good Hope in today's Cape Town in South Africa. The first vintage was 1685 and it was generally thought that Muscat grapes were used to make the intense and aromatic sweet wine. How good was VDC you may ask ????? Well, it was so good that a certain Charles & Jane mentioned the wine in their writing ( as in Dickens & Austen ). How good is VDC you may ask???? Well it was so good that Napoleon asked for it and so did King Louis Philippe of France. Fast Forward 300 years, and we are lucky that the renaissance of this great wine has taken place (I am not going to bore you to ZZZZZ with bunch of history, climate, geography and technical details)Click here know more about Vin de Constance. To be exact, 1986 was the first vintage of modern day VDC as we know it. Today Klein Constancia Estate in Cape Peninsular produces this great sweet wine using 100% Muscat de Frontignan. Go ahead and drink a piece of history if you come across it ...you wont regret it ! . Fine Bins in Kuala Lumpur is the importer of Vin de Constance the last time I checked.

Labels: wine