Groot Constantia Trail #2: Gateway to History
This is the 2nd cache of an 11-cache trail which will take you around this beautiful historic vineyard passing by most of its key features along the way.
The cache, a small camo-taped tablet pot, is hidden close to the old entrance gates which are located on the top of a small hill overlooking the werf (farmstead) down a lovely, shady, oak-lined avenue which stretches for some 350m south-west to the Manor House/Museum.
It is possible with care to park nearby at the side of the approach road to the front left of the gates.
Simon van der Stel arrived at the Cape supply station in 1679 having been appointed by the Dutch East India Company to govern the Cape of Good Hope.
Estranged from his wife he came in the company of his children and sister-in-law, Cornelia Six. Back in the Netherlands he had gained a good background in viticulture at his vineyards in Muiderbergh. The art of wine and brandy making he learnt there he would later in the Cape.
Commissioner Rijckloff van Goens, a former Governor of Ceylon and Council Member of India visited the Cape while recuperating from an illness. He recommended to the Chamber of Seventeen, the governing body of the VOC, that land should be granted to Simon van der Stel who after years of loyal service, had requested land from the Company. In preparation for this he sent out riders to collect soil samples from Table Bay to Muizenberg in order to explore and determine composition and quality.
After a visit by High Commissioner Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede to Drakenstein, on 13th July 1685 Van der Stel received title to 891 morgen (about 763 hectares) chosen for its suitable soil (decomposed granite) with wine-growing potential and magnificently beautiful scenery. In a sheltered valley behind Table Mountain and facing False Bay, the land stretched southwards to the neighbouring free burgher farms of Steenberg and Zwaanswyk and to the north it reached as far as the wooded area named The Hell.
It is thought that Van der Stel named the farm after Commissioner Van Goens’ daughter Constance in recognition of his help and support in obtaining the farmland. Another theory is that the farm was named after the VOC ship ‘Constantia’. It is most likely that he named the farm after the Latin word for constancy or steadfastness, attributes Van der Stel valued greatly.
The original manor house appears to have been designed in a late Dutch Renaissance style. The traveller Francois Valentijn (1666-1727) described it as a double storey dwelling with two or three steps leading to a front room or voorhuis, paved with white marble and red stone. An interesting fact is that there was a big pentagon in the shape of the Castle of Good Hope tiled into the centre of the floor. On both sides of the voorhuis were grand rooms, also with white marble floors.
Agricultural activities at Groot Constantia included viticulture and over the years the wines produced here became renowned in Europe due to their impressive quality. In 1709 there were 70,000 vines on the farm and Van der Stel produced 5,630 litres of wine. The estate also produced other fruit and vegetables and was used for cattle farming.
Groot Constantia’s rich history shows how one man’s love of wine established South Africa’s first wine farm more than 330 years ago and how this land formed the origins of the commercial South African wine industry, with Emperors and Kings such as Frederick the Great of Prussia and Louis Phillipe (King of the French) buying ‘Constantia Wyn’ at auctions across Europe.
South Africa’s oldest wine became so celebrated globally, that it appears in Jane Austen’s novel ‘Sense and Sensibility’ as a cure for a broken heart to be drunk to lift a character’s spirit as in ‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood’ by Charles Dickens.
While the ownership of Groot Constantia has changed over the years, the legacy and supremacy of the wines produced has remained.
See here and here for drone videos of the GC vineyards.
