Constantia is a South African dessert wine. It is made from Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains grapes grown in the district of Constantia, City of Cape Town. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it was widely exported to Europe. However, production of Constantia ceased in the late nineteenth century following the devastation of South African vineyards by the phylloxera epidemic. Production resumed at Klein Constantia in 1986, at Groot Constantia in 2003 and at Buitenverwachting in 2007.
Simon van der Stel was the first Governor of the Dutch Cape Colony (1691), the settlement at the Cape of Good Hope. He was interested in botany, establishing vineyards Groot and Klein Constantia, and producing a famous dessert wine. He is considered one of the founders of South African viticulture.
South African wine has a history dating back to 1659 with the first bottle being produced in Cape Town by its founder and governor Jan van Riebeeck. Access to international markets led to new investment in the South African wine market. Production is concentrated around Cape Town and almost exclusively located within the Western Cape province, with major vineyard and production centres at Constantia, Paarl, Stellenbosch and Worcester.
De Tuynhuys is the office of the president of South Africa, located in Cape Town.
Constantia is an affluent suburb of Cape Town, South Africa, situated about 15 kilometres south of the centre of Cape Town. It is considered to be one of the most prestigious suburbs in South Africa. The Constantia Valley lies to the east of and at the foot of the Constantiaberg mountain. Constantia Nek is a low pass linking to Hout Bay in the west.
Klein Constantia is a wine estate in the suburb of Constantia in Cape Town, South Africa.
Tulbagh, previously named Roodezand, later named after Dutch Cape Colony Governor Ryk Tulbagh, is a town located in the "Land van Waveren" mountain basin, in the Winelands of the Western Cape, South Africa. The basin is fringed on three sides by mountains, and is drained by the Klein Berg River and its tributaries. The nearest towns are Ons Rust and Gouda beyond the Nuwekloof Pass, Wolseley some 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) to the south inside the basin, and Ceres and Prince Alfred Hamlet beyond Michell's Pass in the Warm Bokkeveld.
Louis Michel Thibault, was a French-born South African architect and engineer who designed numerous buildings in the Cape Colony. He was South Africa's first trained architect and brought with him a distinctive mannered neo-classicism.
Rijcklof Volckertsz. van Goens was the Governor of Zeylan and Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. He was the Governor of Zeylan from 12 May 1660 to 1661, then in 1663 and finally from 19 November 1664 to 1675 during the Dutch period in Ceylon. He was also served as Council Member of India during 1679. Van Goens’ managed to monopolize the cinnamon trade, get hold of the Malabar pepper and drive away the Portuguese from Ceylon and the Coromandel Coast for the VOC.
Western Cape is a Geographical Unit within the Wine of Origin classification system of South African wine. Corresponding to the province of Western Cape it includes most of the vineyards in South Africa.
Anton Anreith was a sculptor and woodcarver from Riegel near Freiburg in Breisgau, Baden, Germany. He is known for numerous sculptural embellishments that adorn buildings in the Cape region of South Africa, thought to represent the crowning achievement of the Cape Baroque style.
The early history of the South African wine industry can be traced to the founding of a supply station at the Cape of Good Hope by the Dutch East India Company. Jan van Riebeeck was given the task of managing the station and planting vineyards to produce wine and grapes in the Wijnberg ; that could be used to ward off scurvy for sailors continuing on their voyages along the spice route. In 1685, another Cape Governor, Simon van der Stel, purchased a large 750-hectare (1,900-acre) estate, founding what later became the world-renowned Constantia wine estate. In the 19th century, South Africa fell under British rule which proved lucrative for the wine industry as South African wine flowed into the British market. This prosperity lasted until the 1860s when the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty signed by the Palmerston government and France reduced the preferential tariffs that benefited South African wine in favor of French wine exports.
Assegaaibosch Nature Reserve is a historic estate and currently a CapeNature nature reserve and World Heritage Site situated in the Jonkershoek Valley near Stellenbosch in the Western Cape province of South Africa. The historic estate was established by Dirk Coetsee, the progenitor of the Coetsee family in South Africa.
Steenberg Estate is the site of the oldest farm in Cape Town, located in the suburb of Constantia. Steenberg is translates as “Mountain of Stone” and is named for the nearby mountain range. The manor house and other buildings on the farm have been declared a national monument. The estate has been redeveloped as a hotel, vineyard and golf course.
Rust en Vreugd, is a historic house and garden, located on Buitekant Street at the edge of the central business district of Cape Town, South Africa. It is one of the few remaining 18th-century buildings in the city. The Rust en Vreudg is home to the William Fehr Collection of pictorial Africana. It is a part of the Iziko Museums.
Coetsenburg is an historic wine estate and one of the oldest estates in South Africa, established in 1682. It is located at the foot of the Stellenbosch Mountain, which forms part of the estate, in the town of Stellenbosch, 31 miles (50 km) east of Cape Town, in the Cape Winelands of the Western Cape Province. The estate has historically been owned by the Coetsee family and is currently not open to the public. The north-western portion of the original estate is now the Coetsenburg Sports Grounds which belongs to the University of Stellenbosch.
Dirk Coetzee/Coetsee was a Dutch colonist and the Hoofdheemraad (Chancellor) of the District of Stellenbosch and Drakenstein in South Africa for most of the 1690s and early 1700s. He also served as captain of the Stellenbosch Infantry and deacon of the Stellenbosch Moederkerk at different points in time. As captain of the Stellenbosch Infantry, which comprised mostly Huguenots, he provided military backing for a rebellion which began in 1706 against the Governor of the Cape Colony, Willem Adriaan van der Stel, whom the vrijburghers had accused of tyranny, corruption and racketeering. Coetsee was imprisoned in the dungeon of the Castle of Good Hope along with the other leaders of the Huguenots but he was released after a year. The rebellion ultimately succeeded in 1707 when the Dutch East India Company recalled the Governor and other colonial officials. An account of the rebellion is vividly described in the "Diary of Adam Tas".
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Cape Town:
Olof Bergh was an early Swedish-South African explorer and Cape Colony official as well as the progenitor of the well-known Bergh family in South Africa. He is also a former owner of South Africa's first wine estate "Groot Constantia" after Simon van der Stel. His accounts of his travels to the interior of the Cape Colony are among some of the first Dutch writings to originate on South African soil.
Anna de Coningh was the wife of early Swedish explorer Olof Bergh and the daughter of an enslaved woman, Angela van Bengale and François de Coninck of Ghent from the ship Drommedaris.
