The topic was a deep dive into sauvignon blanc from Constantia and Marston had wrangled the winemakers from all the wine farms in the area to present one wine and talk about their specific sites, soils and winemaking practices.
Represented were Buitenverwachting, Groot Constantia, Klein Constantia and Steenberg, along with Constantia Glen, Beau Constantia, Silvermist and Constantia Royale. (Eagle’s Nest source their fruit from Darling and Durbanville.)
Kicking off the presentation Marston drew some interesting comparisons with the world’s sauvignon blanc producing regions, notably France’s Sancerre, Chile’s Casablanca and New Zealand’s Marlborough area.
Sancerre and Constantia were at pretty much the same elevation, Marston noted, while Constantia, Casablanca and New Zealand all had the benefit of maritime influences due to proximity to the ocean. In terms of rainfall, Constantia boasts slightly more annual precipitation than Sancerre at around 750mm versus 550mm but then New Zealand’s sauvignon blanc heartland has just shy of 1000mm and Casablanca is at the other end of the scale with 365mm.
But those are not the only figures of interest: Sancerre boasts around 2 000 hectares under sauvignon blanc while Casablanca has 1 980 – and Marlborough a whopping 22 500 hectares! By comparison, Constantia’s 188 hectares seem meagre – and yet this South African region shows great promise because of the range of soils, aspects and altitudes which means the wines from the individual producers all have a point of difference.
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