The Wine Napoleon Begged For on His Deathbed — It Was Made in South Africa

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In the final weeks of his life, exiled to a windswept island in the South Atlantic, Napoleon Bonaparte had one request. Not maps. Not dispatches. Wine — a specific, golden wine from a farm at the southern tip of Africa. He drank it until it ran out. Then he died.

That wine was Vin de Constance. And it came from a hillside outside Cape Town that had been making it for over a century.

The Farm at the End of the World

Groot Constantia sits beneath the Constantiaberg mountains, just 20 minutes from Cape Town’s city centre. Today it looks like something from a dream — white Cape Dutch gables, ancient oak trees lining the driveway, the smell of fermenting grapes carried on the south-easter wind.

It was founded in 1685 by Simon van der Stel, the first Governor of the Cape Colony. He chose this particular valley because the soil and the prevailing winds created growing conditions unlike anywhere else on earth.

What he planted here would shape global wine history for the next two centuries. The Huguenot refugees who arrived soon after brought French winemaking knowledge with them, and together they turned a remote Cape Colony outpost into one of the world’s most celebrated wine regions.

The Wine That Conquered Polite Society

By the mid-1700s, Vin de Constance — a naturally sweet wine made from Muscat de Frontignan grapes — was the most sought-after wine in Europe. It wasn’t just fashionable. It was extraordinary.

Frederick the Great of Prussia ordered it by the barrel. The Russian royal court served it at state banquets. Jane Austen wrote it into Sense and Sensibility as the perfect remedy for a broken heart — the character Marianne Dashwood is prescribed it after her devastating disappointment in love.

Wine merchants in Amsterdam and London charged remarkable sums for it. Ships sailing the spice route would stop at the Cape specifically to load cases of Constantia wine. It was the benchmark by which all other dessert wines were judged.

Why Napoleon Couldn’t Stop Thinking About It

Napoleon had tasted Vin de Constance long before his defeat at Waterloo. By the time he arrived at St Helena — the island prison where he spent his final six years — the wine had become more than a favourite. It was comfort. A taste of another life.

Records from his household show he received regular shipments from the Cape Colony. When supplies ran low, his staff wrote urgent letters requesting more. Wine merchants on the island charged extortionate prices knowing his appetite for it.

He drank it daily in his final years. When he died in May 1821, a partially consumed bottle stood on the table beside his bed.

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The Catastrophe Nobody Saw Coming

Then came the phylloxera.

The tiny vine louse — accidentally imported from America in the mid-1800s — swept through vineyards across Europe and the Cape Colony with ruthless efficiency, destroying root systems in a matter of seasons. The Muscat vines at Constantia were gone within a decade.

The estates changed hands. Production shifted to table wines. The knowledge of how to make Vin de Constance faded with the people who held it. For nearly a century, the wine existed only in historical records and the occasional dusty bottle surfacing at European auction houses — selling for thousands, not for drinking but for the story attached to them.

The Wine Comes Back to Life

In 1980, the Jooste family purchased Klein Constantia, the neighbouring estate. They found historical records describing the original wine in detail — the grape variety, the harvesting method, the way it was pressed. They tracked down old vine stock. And in 1986, they released the first bottle of the restored Vin de Constance.

Critics were quietly astonished. Amber-gold in colour, rich with apricot, orange blossom, and honeyed spice — the wine aged with a grace that few modern wines can match. It was, by every serious measure, a worthy successor to the legend.

Today Klein Constantia produces Vin de Constance in small batches each year. A half-bottle sells for around £25. The same wine, from an early 1800s vintage, regularly fetches many thousands at Sotheby’s.

What It Feels Like to Visit

Walking through Groot Constantia today, you’re moving through three centuries of Cape wine history. The manor house is a national monument. The cellar — built in the 1790s and now a museum — still carries the faint, sweet smell of old oak. The vineyards stretch out toward the mountains in every direction.

Klein Constantia is just down the road, past a canopy of old oaks. Both estates are open daily for tastings. If you go in autumn — March or April, when the harvest is winding down — the whole valley smells of new wine and crushed grape.

If you’re planning a South Africa itinerary, the Constantia Valley is an easy half-day from Cape Town’s city centre. Most visitors combine it with Kirstenbosch Gardens, which borders the estate.

It’s hard to stand among these vines and not feel the weight of it all — the emperors and poets and romantics who once longed for a glass of something grown in this exact soil, under these exact mountains.

Napoleon never made it to South Africa. But for six years on a lonely Atlantic island, this valley came to him — bottle by bottle — until there was nothing left to send.

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Plan Your South Africa Trip

Ready to visit the Cape Winelands? Our South Africa two-week itinerary includes a full day in the Constantia Valley, with tasting notes and practical advice for first-time visitors.

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