Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife joined more than 170 guests, hosted by the Queen, for a sit-down meal in Buckingham Palace’s ballroom on Tuesday.
The impressive food courses were accompanied by 6 fine wines, including Klein Constantia Vin de Constance 2008 . Wine Cellar has magnums of this royal favourite for R2,750.
This wine is ‘plumper again, rounder, with some nicely bitter, black chocolate notes and flavours of mint, pears, marmalade, honey and sweet spices, very complex, with a tight, deep structure and that taut, tense acidity running through it, as ever. There’s such a strong family resemblance in these wines. Beautiful balance; perfect poise and elegance.’  – Decanter, 95/100
This week also saw the release of Klein Constantia Vin de Constance 2011 (R750 p/b) – another terrific vintage that Christian Eedes of Winemag has awarded 96 points. It continues with the change in winemaking style, creating a vastly fresher offering. The approach sees a lot more attention spent on the finer details, such as intense berry selection, pre-dawn picking and the use of Acacia wood (which has a tighter grain and thicker staves) to slow down the micro-oxidation process.
Christian explains:
‘One major change is “more flexible oak managementâ€, the wine now bottled when the brain trust feels is most appropriate rather than simply when the previous vintage sells out and time in oak has consequently come down from four and a half years in the case of the 2008 to three years for the 2011.The nose is pretty and entirely captivating – citrus, lilac, herbs, spice, even a little mint. The palate, meanwhile, shows pure fruit and zippy acidity – it’s an extraordinarily vivid glass of wine – the finish suitably long without being astringent. Really classy.’
This is a real investment wine.
Order online or view our full Vin de Constance selection .
The post Vin de Constance 2008 fit for royalty appeared first on Wine Cellar Plus.
more on winecellarplus.co.za
