feature / vin voyage / La Paulée de Mauritius
chocolate,” he tells me. He also likes making icecreams and sorbets as much as I enjoy eating them, particularly his mango sorbet, which is fresh with lime juice. “In Mauritius, they like high sweetness, but when things are too sweet, you don’t taste the fruit and spices, so I have to train my staff to use less sugar.” So, what is the secret to a perfect macaron? “It’s a feeling,” he says. “The biscuit itself is simple. We just have to respect the temperature of the sugar. Italian meringue is best, with no air in the mixture, so the biscuit stays strong, but delicate. Sandwich it with a nice ganache filling and leave it in the fridge for 24 hours for the biscuit to acquire the perfect level of moisture—not too soft or rich. Ladurée have humidifiers in the fridges to speed the process, but we make only 300 macarons a week.” Clearly, I’d had more than my fair share… my favorite being vanilla sandwiched with passion fruit and chocolate. It turns out that this is a mirador, adapted from the classic pastry by renowned pastry chef Pierre Hermé, who visits Le Prince Maurice annually for the food festival week. We agree that demi-sec Champagne is the best accompaniment for macarons.
Klein Constantia (South Africa) Most wine lovers are likely to have encountered the historic South African sweet wine, Vin de Constance. A magnum of the 2019 made an appearance at the paulée, with a chocolate, coconut, and tapioca desert—the finale of a dinner produced by guest chef Jorg Bruch, who ran the Red Bull Hanger-7 Restaurant Ikarus in Salzburg. Klein Constantia’s very personable estate manager and
winemaker, Matthew Day, was on hand to tutor the sommeliers during the week, grabbing their attention with the £60,000 auction price of the 1821 vintage. Matt tells us that the 1791 still tastes good. The production of this sweet wine, mentioned by Dickens and Austen, ceased in 1875 for reasons that included the difficulty of finding vineyard labor following the abolition of slavery, as well as the ever-present threat of oidium and free-trade agreements that undermined the market. But it was resurrected in 1986. Come 2011, the Jooste family sold Klein Constantia to Czech businessman Zdenek Bakala and Charles Harman from the UK, whereupon a 25-year-old intern—Matt Day—was given a shot at making the wine. He grabbed it, and the rest is history. He is widely recognized as having taken Vin de Constance to the next level. It’s made from Muscat de Frontignan, which has thick skin resilient to oidium and botrytis. A staggering 28 passes are made though the vineyard to collect perfect bunches of 50%
raisined berries. “We are trying to make a sweet wine that doesn’t taste sweet,” Matt tells us. With 165g/l residual sugar, the 2019 is super-sweet, but what matters is the balance made with acidity (pH 3.6) and alcohol (14%). The aroma of dried apricot and hazelnuts is intense and complex. But Klein Constantia has other wines, notably Sauvignon Blanc. Give me a reductive, varietal Sauvignon Blanc—all pyrazines and thiols—and I’ll look for the nearest flowerpot, but Sav Blanc’s assertive personality can be reined in to express terroir, and Matt has made strides in this direction with help of Loire specialist Pascal Jolivet. The 2018 Metis Sauvignon Blanc 2018, which comes from high-altitude parcels on granite soil, was not settled after pressing and spent 12 months on its gross lees. The resulting wine is both nutty and mineral, with light slate on the finish. Matt informs us that his experience of making Matis was instrumental in going a step further to produce single-vineyard Sauvignon Blanc. Unfortunately, the single-vineyard wines were still on a ship heading in a leisurely fashion toward Mauritius. They landed as I left, so Matt sent me the 2023 Perdeblokke Sauvignon Blanc to taste at home in London. This comes from a 1.28ha (3.2-acre) block at about 200ft (60m), divided into two parcels facing south and east. These are separately fermented and aged in oak on lees for nine months before blending. The aroma manages to be both tropical and grassy. The full-bodied palate is certainly ripe (14%), but it’s the finish that is most interesting for its mineral grip. The saltiness balances the glycerol richness. Don’t serve it too cold—as it warms up, the savory sapidity is more pronounced. It’s the decomposed granite of Constantia’s soils that gives the savory salinity, Matt explains, while the richness and substance comes from the Table Mountain sandstone. You can find that same savory minerality in the 2023 Clara Sauvignon Blanc—a blend and barrel-selection from six of the most highly performing blocks from granite soil at an attitude of 850–1,000ft (260–300m). The touch of passionfruit falls away to reveal a polished graphite core in this rich Sauvignon Blanc, which slides elegantly across the palate.
Crystallum and Gabrielskloof (South Africa) In my conversation with Jérôme Faure, he emphasized the importance of South African wine for the Constance hotels here: “Guests expect this. They see Mauritius as part of Africa.” Hence South African Peter-Allan Finlayson was present
en famille, representing Crystallum, which he established in Hemel-en-Aarde with his brother in 2007. “My family are good at setting up winery brands, but not good at holding on to them,” he added ruefully. His grandfather lost the farm he had established with the proceeds of an antivenom and his father followed suit by losing Bouchard Finlayson. Peter-Allan has a firm grip on things, however, not least the winemaking. The 2022 Crystallum Agnes Chardonnay, a blend of five vineyards aged in older oak for nine months, shows some restraint. Lightly tropical upfront, becoming more savory, it finishes fresh. Peter-Allan is pursuing a Chablis style. “The alcohol is lower than it used to be. I don’t stir and I use much less sulfur, just one hit after eight months, and it has full malo.”
Left: Entering into the paulée spirit during the Burgundian drinking song. Opposite: Jérôme Faure (third from left), colleagues, and guest producers.
168 | THE WORLD OF FINE WINE | ISSUE 87 | 2025
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