With its annual visitor numbers hitting the 400 000 mark, Groot Constantia will offer a new Visitors’ Route when summer comes round.

South Africa’s oldest wine producing estate will present an experience that combines its original homestead and cellar with a wine tasting. 

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According to Grant Newton, Marketing Manager for Groot Constantia, the original Manor House will become the ‘front door’, where visitors will be able to purchase a ticket that provides full access to all the offerings on the estate, including the Iziko museums, the Cloete Cellar and a self-guided cellar tour and tasting experience.  The cost of the ticket, still to be firmed up, will come in at under R100.

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After touring the Manor House, visitors can explore the original wine production cellar, which first began making wine in 1791.  A new development for the historic cellar is an interactive museum, along with a new tasting room.  Here visitors can learn of the estate’s illustrious past clients, which include King Louis Philippe of France, Napoleon, who ordered 30 bottles a month during his exile on St Helena, the British Royal family and Frederic the Great of Prussia.

Jean Naudé, General Manager of Groot Constantia, says a pleasing spin-off from the new Visitors’ Route is a growth in direct employment opportunities at the estate. The new tasting room alone will require 10 additional employees as front-of-house staff.

He says the addition of a Visitors’ Route provides a value-added experience attractive to both South Africans and international tourists. He points out that Groot Constantia is the only wine farm included among the Big Seven tourist attractions in Cape Town.

Groot Constantia boasts two top-notch restaurants, Jonkershuis and Simon’s. “Along with the other offerings at Groot Constantia, these restaurants are definitely an influencing factor with regard to the growth in numbers that we have seen,” says Newton.