High Constantia Wine Cellar

About Winery and Wines

Sebastiaan Valentjin van Reenen, Snr., who created High Constantia Sebastiaan Valentjin van Reenen, Snr., who created High Constantia High Constantia has been restored to its former winemaking glory. David van Niekerk resurrected the historic High Constantia by creating wines which combine traditions of the past with flavours that resonate in the New Millennium. High Constantia, originally called Wittebomen, because of the number of Silverleaf trees growing there, became the property of the Van Renen family when it was purchased, in the early 1800s, from William Duckitt. An 1816 record reports Sebastiaan van Renen as ‘preparing to make vineyards’ in the hope of successfully vying for market share with Cloete and Colijn, his neighbours at Constantia and Hoop-op-Constantia known today as Klein Constantia. Van Renen was acting on the conviction that the hedge, which separated his farm from Constantia, did not change the nature of the soil; he believed that something in the climate of that hill imparted the wine’s particular flavour. The Van Renens planted 110 000 stocks of the Muscadel grape on their hillside and when adverse rains washed away vines and land, they quickly applied themselves to the conditions and dug trenches to lead off the water in the next season