Vin de Constance, 2022
Cool and svelte black fruits – plum, blackberry, cherry and cassis – as well as liquorice, pencil shavings and coffee meld on the palate with a lovely heady floral note. The sapid finish is supremely long and impressive with wonderfully velvety tannins, allied with good powdery grip and an enduring persistence.
critic reviews
The Klein Constantia 2022 Vin de Constance Natural Sweet Wine is primary and exuberant, reflecting a warmer, compressed growing season. Harvest was condensed by roughly four weeks in this hot vintage, remaining largely textbook until late-season conditions accelerated picking, which finished in the first week of April. The grapes underwent cold settling before pressing, with ongoing blending at various points and after extended elevage. This vintage allowed for particularly strict fruit selection, with some components excluded entirely. The wine shows explosive orange fruit aromatics with saffron and honeycomb. Cooling Atlantic breezes remain critical in preserving balance in warmer vintages like 2022.
The 2022 Vin de Constance was picked from 15 March until 7 April, with fewer picks since Matt Day said the team is more confident about when and how to pick. There were 18 passes through the vines compared to 30 in the past. There is one week maceration on the skins with pumpovers, then a pied de cuve is made with further fermentation on the skins with inoculated Sauternes strain of yeast. It went through a one or two hour press, with a lot of blending done in the small hours of the morning until all the tanks are around 165g/L residual sugar with 14 degrees alcohol, at which point Day finds that the fermentation stops naturally. It is aged for 18 months in 500-litre barrels with 50% new oak and a further 20 months (slightly longer) in barrel. It has a very pure and perfumed nose with wild honey, yellow fruit, quince and then hints of rose water and white flowers that emerge with time. The palate is viscous on the entry with exquisite balance. There is richness, as you expect from a Vin de Constance, but there is also no sense of heaviness and plenty of tension on the finish. Very precise and full of energy, this is a sophisticated Vin de Constance that will age beautifully in bottle.
Power and precision in the flavours, a touch of tar, rosebuds, pink grapefruit, preserved citrus, star anise, just a ton of flavour and character and grip, it stretches out through the palate, peach pit, with energy and power. Just such a consistently great wine. Matthew Day winemaker, 90ha estate, 18 months in 50% new 500L Hungarian and French oak barrels, followed by 16 months in large oak casks, 168g/h residual sugar.