While the verdict may still be out on whether PET bottles will be the wine containers of the future, the historical romance of glass is beyond argument. When a fragment of a bottle embossed “Constantia Wyn” washed up at Roosevelt Inlet on the shores of Delaware Bay in 2004, it set in motion a project to recreate the mythical sweet wines of Constantia at the Mother of all Constantia wineries, Groot Constantia. Something you simply don’t get with plastic.

Jean Naudé

The fruits of the project were presented to a select bunch of bloggers and wine hacks at the estate’s Jonkershuis restaurant yesterday at a slap-up lunch which invited all media bases: from cosmopolitan blogger Clare Mack and partner Eamon to dead-tree dreadnaught Greg Landman from mass circulation City Press to beautiful Bianca du Plessis from House and Garden, a magazine so post-modern, it doesn’t even have a website. The past, present and future of SA wine reportage around a table hosted by Groot Constantia GM Jean Naudé.

“Is this brown glass?” asked Eamon of Groot cellarmaster Boela Gerber, caressing the Consol recreation of the 18th century bottle. “How would you say that in English?” asked Boela, thinking that Eamon’s Irish brogue was another entry into the tower of Babel in this most cosmopolitan of wine tourism addresses. But when it came down to tasting the golden nectar, all confusion was lost in translation. Rich rooibos tea with apricot jam, the kind of tipple you’d offer Jane Austen if she stopped by for tea and scones.

Eamon and Boela

Boela reports that there are two ways to make Constantia: in the style of a white wine as is done at neighbour Klein Constantia, or as a red wine – fermented on the skins in old barrels, racked off the lees and matured in other barrels for two years, or 24 months in cellarspeak (it sounds longer) as is the case with this Grand Constance. “All those bright ideas we were taught at University didn’t work out” reports Boela, so any bargain basement bibulists should look out for Groot Constantia Muscat de Frontignan from vintages prior to this one, 2008.

Boela’s elixir is packaged in a bespoke Consol bottle sealed with fireman red postal wax from Jack’s Wax in Johannesburg. The wooden presentation box is fashioned from old barrels and the bottle nestles in a bed of wood shavings from the same source. A nice local-is-lekker touch in these days when Fifa goodie bags in World Cup hospitality suites featured synthetic blankets made in China and other imported South African curios made in Asia.