Filling Big Shoes and Creating his Path

Published: 04 May 2010

Tall, soft-spoken and studious in his approach, Mason, 36, has filled those shoes admirably while cutting his own path along the way. In particular, he’s taken the winery’s flagship dessert wine, Vin de Constance, to new levels in the ’04 and ’05 vintages. A recent vertical tasting showed that Mason has made winemaking changes and improved a wine that is arguably the country’s top sweet wine.

Vin de Constance has a long history, though one with a long interruption as well. The wine, made from red and white Frontignan grapes in the 18th and 19th centuries, was a favored sweet wine of European royalty. Cases were sent to assuage Napoleon’s mood as he sat in exile on St. Helena island. Eventually the wine disappeared. The first nail in the coffin came when the British took over the Cape from the Dutch in the early part of the 19th century, removing preferential trade tariffs that killed the market for the wine. Phylloxera then appeared in 1866 to decimate the wine industry in general.

The Constantia estate eventually was broken into pieces; along with Klein Constantia, the Groote Constantia, Buitenverwachting and Constantia Uitsig wineries are the descendants of the original estate.

With the property in disrepair, the Jooste family decided to buy it in 1980. “At the time, the farm had some Chenin Blanc on it going to the local co-op, but basically it was a derelict farm,” says Mason. “A tractor had broken down in the vineyard and was full of fermenting grapes when they bought it. Shortly thereafter, the Jooste family was approached by a University of Stellenbosch professor named Chris Orffer who told them about the wine’s history at Klein Constantia. He basically provided the spark to recreate the Vin de Constance.” “I was filling big shoes at the time... ...He was a legend.”

With an eye on restoring the property to its winemaking glory, the Jooste family and Gower planted new Muscat de Frontignan grapes in 1983. By 1986, they had resurrected Vin de Constance, which is bottled in a reproduction of the wine’s original 18thcentury bottle. There were just two barrels made that year, from shriveled Muscat de Frontignan grapes. The wine has been made in every vintage since, though the ’03 was not commercially released. “The balance just wasn’t there,” says Mason, whose first vintage at Klein Constantia was 2004.

Today, there are now 10 hectares (24.7 acres) of Muscat de Frontignan on the estate, with seven of them currently in production and the additional three coming on line in 2012. Since taking over, Mason has changed the way the wine is made, resulting in more purity and precision. By harvesting sections of the vineyard at different times, Mason starts with grapes that are fermented almost dry and then uses that as a base wine to macerate the more raisined fruit that comes in from later pickings.

“I went to Hungary and what I saw there confirmed what I had been trying to work out for myself,” says Mason. “I was able to understand it properly and see the benefit of harvesting at different stages and then blending to get something homogenous every year. Prior to that, we were trying to harvest everything at a perfect time, but you had bunches with shriveled berries on one side and green grapes in the interior of the bunch, so you were just getting an average ripeness but no flexibility. Now we pick grapes at different times so we get the ripeness we want and the flexibility to make the blend from there.”

The newest vintages of the wine show terrific ripeness while staying pure and vibrant. One thing that hasn’t changed, though, is the wine’s almost dry feel, a feeling accentuated as the wine ages. The Vin de Constance 1988 has an almost Sercial Madeira feel to it, combining its sweetness with a very bracing edge.

“Muscat is a very thick-skinned variety and very phenolic; we aim to extract those phenols as much as possible,” Mason says. “So that dry quality as it ages is a function of the grape, since it’s not a high-acid grape to begin with. It’s a more tannin-driven grape than acidity. We really treat it like a red wine as we make it, with lots of punch downs and aeration.”

Mason has changed the way the wine is made, resulting in more purity and precision. Even as Mason’s first two vintages show a noticeable shift in style and impressive improvement, he remains very self-critical. “If I look at my learning curve, I picked ’04 a little too soon, as I panicked a bit. It was the first vintage of making this incredibly important wine,” he says, noting his nerves at the time. “Then in ’05, I waited longer. I felt more confident so we pushed it a little farther and maybe we pushed it too far. The residual sugar was much higher so it struggled to ferment all the way through, which is why the alcohol is significantly lower, two percent compared to the ’04, which is a lot. The ’06 is 13 percent alcohol,and that’s ideally where I’d like it to be.” The ’05 does come off as significantly lighter in feel (just 12 percent alcohol) when tasted alongside the ’04 (14.4 percent alcohol), but it’s still balanced, with super clean quince and clementine fruit flavors and a very long finish. It will be fun to watch it age alongside the weightier ’04, though both vintages are likely to age on a different track from the vintages made by Gower.

“My guess is they will not age the same,” Mason says. “Ross was a rustic guy and the older vintages show that green hint with a Madeira-like edge. I’m not that style, so my wines are different. I have a feeling my wines are a little fresher, which is what I’m looking for. I hope they continue to evolve in the way of earlier vintages in that they keep that dry, nervy edge, but I don’t think they’ll change color as quickly. I fine the wines, which removes brown pigments, as I want the wines to be very clean and fresh stylistically.”

Mason’s tweaks to the process have done exactly what he wanted; they’ve put his own personal stamp on the wine without sacrificing its overall character or personality. And, at $50 per 500ml, the wine is priced attractively vis a vis Sauternes or late harvest Loire, German and Austrian dessert wines.

From Stirring the Lees with James Molesworth – WineSpectator.com blogs