Smuggled Sunlight: The 2017 Vin de Constance You’ll Hide From Friends

A Knock At Midnight

Some bottles don’t ask permission—they pick the lock, kick off their shoes, and whisper, “You up?” Klein Constantia’s Vin de Constance 2017 is that kind of trouble: old-world legend smuggled into the present, a sweet wine with the swagger of a fighter pilot and the manners of a courtier. You think you know dessert wine; this one rewires the circuitry. If the gods still sent love letters, they’d taste like this.

What The Glass Confesses

Hold it to the light and time slows. The color lands somewhere between apricot glaze and antique gold—like candlelight in a Venetian mirror. The nose is a festival: sun-warmed apricot tart, bergamot peel, candied quince, saffron threads, rooibos honey, and a lick of sea breeze that hints at the Cape. Give it air and you get marmalade over warm brioche, fresh ginger, frangipani, and that clean beeswax note that spells pedigree. It’s hedonism dressed in silk, not syrup.

The Velvet Whiplash

First sip: a slow-motion roll of apricot and white peach, nectarine jam brightened by naartjie zest. Then—snap—the famous Constantia acidity steps in like a metronome, straightening the spine and dragging the sweetness into focus. Texture is plush yet taut, like velvet pulled over a blade. The mid-palate flashes candied citrus, bergamot tea, fennel pollen, and a salty-mineral line that keeps you tilting the glass back for another read. The finish is unreasonably long—bitter-orange pith, ginger crystal, almond paste—fading like a good scandal. It’s dessert wine that behaves like a great table wine: balanced, structured, athletic.

The Story They Don’t Put On The Label

Yes, this is the modern heir to the Constantia that seduced emperors and authors. But here’s why the 2017 matters: drought-year fruit in the amphitheater of the Constantia Valley, cooled by False Bay’s sea breath, grown on decomposed granite and sandstone that give that saline, stony snap. The grape is Muscat de Frontignan, picked in multiple passes as the berries raisin on the vine—this isn’t botrytized Sauternes cosplay; it’s South African to the marrow. The team coaxes purity over stickiness, maturing the wine in a thoughtful mosaic of vessels (oak, acacia, large formats) to frame fruit, not smother it. The result is an elegance that reads as restraint, even when the wine is throwing rose petals at your face.

Feast Like You Mean It

Chill it to 10–12°C in proper small stems (sweet-wine or even a white Burgundy glass if you want more aroma theater). It will sing for a week in the fridge after opening, gaining honeyed bass notes day by day. Food? Go savory first: roast duck with blood-orange jus, peri-peri prawns, or Cape Malay curry where sweet heat and spice braid together. It’s indecent with foie gras on toasted brioche and a good friend who doesn’t count slices. For dessert, think almond tart with apricot, baklava, Basque cheesecake, or blue cheese with honeycomb. This is not a “one spoonful is plenty” cordial—it’s a main event.

The Case For Hedonism As An Asset Class

Collectors already know the playbook: iconic name, finite production, track record, and a drinking window that stretches, conservatively, two decades—closer to three if you like tertiary wax, tea, and dried citrus. Critics have been tossing mid-to-high 90s at Vin de Constance for years; 2017 is squarely in that orbit. Secondary-market demand is durable because the wine offers what many sweet wines don’t right now—energy. Price trajectory remains rational relative to the company it keeps, and the bottle is a conversation piece before the cork even sighs. Buy two: one for curiosity, one for the 2040s when you feel like flexing without shouting.

The Last Pour

If you skip 2017, you’re passing on a lightning-caught-in-amber vintage that turns skeptics into disciples. This is pleasure with posture—decadence trained by discipline. The queue will only get longer. Your future self would like a word.