Lannice Snyman Publishers
Food Photography: Tara Fiscer
The question of what to serve with Vin de Constance - a dessert wine - produced by Klein Constantia Wine Estate provided the impetus for this book which has been selected as the Best Book on Matching Food and Wine (English) in the prestigious Gourmand World Cookbook Awards announced last week.
The book contains recipes for dishes which complement this sweet late-harvest wine which dates back to Simon van der Stel's time in Constantia.
According to the Klein Constantia website, the valley is "the oldest, most enduring vineyard region in the Cape, first producing wine in 1689".
Unlike other estates in the Constantia Winelands, Klein Constantia only does wine. It doesn't have a restaurant and doesn't intend to have one in the future. It has a steady stream of traffic with people attending tastings. Many come to taste Vin de Constance.
If one could talk about wine as a celebrity, then Vin de Constance has celebrity status to dine out on. It was celebrated and coveted all over the world, right from when Van der Stel started production from his Constantia property which was the size of Amsterdam.
Everybody who was anybody wanted this wine.
Napoleon had a stash of Vin de Constance while he was in exile on St Helena. Jane Austen wrote about the wine as a panacea for a love-struck character. Charles Dickens mused that a glass of Vin de Constance went very well with home-made biscuit.
Production of Vin de Constance stopped in about 1850 due to financial difficulties by the then owners and fungal infections that decimated the vines, explains Lowell Jooste of Klein Constantia Wine Estate.
Lowell's father, Duggie Jooste, bought Klein Constantia in 1980 and began restoring the derelict property to its former glory. Part of Duggie's vision was to bring Vin de Constance back to life.
Headed by Ross Gower, the Klein Constantia wine-making team examined historic records and reports by early travellers who had tasted the wines and modern research. They eventually used a clone of Muscat de Frontignan propagated from vines, which probably came from the original stock used in Constantia 300 years ago. The first bottles of 20th century Vin de Constance were released in 1986.
The wine has received many honours which include selection as one of 25 Great Vineyards of the world by the American Wine & Spirits Journal; featured with nine wines from the world's "most mythical vineyards" in a French exhibition that opened in Bordeaux in 2000 before touring international centres and listed in the French coffee-table book 100 Legendary Wines and one of 44 labels in Les Plus Grand Crus du Monde.
Late harvest wines are expensive to produce. It is low-yield producing. At Klein Constantia, overripe grapes are used and left on the vines until they have almost shrivelled into raisins. A lot of grapes are needed to produce the juice.
"The flavour is very concentrated," says Lowell.
Last year in April, Albert Roux attended a lunch at Klein Constantia hosted by Lowell and Klein Constantia winemaker, Adam Mason. They ate in the cellar of the estate. The famous Vin de Constance was on the table as were the other KC estate wines.
Roux is famous in his own right. He started Le Gavroche restaurant in London in 1967 with his brother, Michel. In 1982, La Gavroche became the first UK restaurant to be awarded a coveted three Michelin stars.
Albert Roux's son - also named Michel - took over the Le Gavroche kitchen in 1991 and is the current head chef.
At the Klein Constantia lunch, Lowell mentioned that they were constantly asked upstairs in the tasting section for recommendations for food for Vin de Constance.
Albert Roux answered: "Why don't you speak to my son (Michel jun), he might be interested in doing a little booklet or something.
Shortly after that, Lowell popped into La Gavroche and had a chat with Michel who was enthusiastic.
On his return to the Cape, Lowell established that Lannice Snyman is tops in the field of publishing quality cookbooks. Snyman couldn't resist the opportunity to work with Vin de Constance and Michel.
It was an international production, reflects Lowell: "Michel put the recipes together, all the food photography was done in London, design in South Africa and printing in Singapore."
Lowell's not just a son to the vineyard born. With an accounting degree from UCT, he studied oenology (wine making) at Davis University in California.
The book is a delicious celebration of contemporary food and heritage wine and with historical text by Jos Baker about the wine - from its glory days and then after a period of 150 years, its re-emergence as a vino on the international market once again.
- Vin De Constance With Michel Roux Jr is available at Exclusive Books, Wordsworths and other stores.