The bottle, from the1821 vintage, is returning to the place it was produced at Cloete Cellar at Groot Constantia early two centuries ago.
Grand Constance, the French translation for Groot Constantia, received international acclaim for its superior quality and began to fetch extremely high prices at well-attended auctions in many European cities - with emperors and kings, such as Frederick the Great of Prussia, Napoleon Bonaparte and King Louis Philippe of France, all vying for their share.
Before his death in 1821, Napoleon had 30 bottles of Grand Constance shipped over to St Helena Island every month to ease his exile.
Charles Dickens celebrated it in Edwin Drood, Jane Austen's character recommended it as a cure for a broken heart to heroine Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility and Charles Baudelaire compared Constantia wine to his lover‘s lips in his most famous volume of poems, Les Fleurs du Mal.
Constantia bottles, bottle shards and bottle seals dating from as far back as 1774 have been found in far corners of the globe in some unusual circumstances: One bottle was found at the bottom of the ocean in the archipelago outside Stockholm in the late 1940’s by a diver; three bottles were discovered in the cellar of a castle near Belgium that date to the period 1760 – 1840; a bottle piece featuring the Constantia bottle seal was discovered on a beach in the Delaware Bay and identified by historians to be part of the cargo of the Severn – a ship that was stranded there in 1774.
Time Capsule captures Grand Constance for future wine lovers
Groot Constantia celebrated the return and unveiling of this grand old Grand Constance bottle at an event held on Thursday 15 September at the estate.
The Estate bricked up a “time capsule” in one of the Cloete Cellar vents filled with 12 bottles of Grand Constance 2009. The time capsule will be opened on 2 February 2109 when the South African wine industry will be celebrating 450 years of existence. The time capsuled wine will then be 100 years old.
Visitors to Groot Constantia will be able to view the 1821 bottle of Grand Constance in the Cloete Cellar museum where it will enjoy a place of esteem.
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