/ FOOD & WINE /
Only the finest EMILE JOUBERT
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s the home of the Cape wine industry, the Constantia wine region has an abundance of offerings that never ceases to amaze. If you want to explore the area that made the sweet wines Napoleon sipped on while in exile on St Helena in the early 1800s, Constantia’s the place to be. How about some Sauvignon Blanc? Sure, South Africa’s most popular white wine variety is made to a level of extraordinary excellence in this cool region. And as far as wine tourism goes, Constantia’s offering of cellars and venues that are focussed on wine is in a league of their own.
UNEXPECTED REDS
With everything else it has to offer, it’s easy to forget what a brilliant part of the world Constantia is for red wine. This is, for example, where Cabernet Sauvignon was first grown in the Cape. And in the 1970s, before the Cape’s wine boom, wine-lovers would queue up outside Groot Constantia waiting to get their hands on a case or two of red wine. There is a lot of good red wine in the country, most noticeably from Stellenbosch, Franschhoek and the Swartland. And due to its association with Sauvignon Blanc and those noble sweet wines, plus its status as South Africa’s main wine address, the fact that Constantia makes some of the nation’s most magisterial red wines is not always recognised.
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2021/11/17 20:06
