Napoleon Drank It on His Deathbed. Enslaved People Made It: The Real Makers of Constantia Wine

By the This Day in Wine History Editorial Team · Researched, fact-checked & verified by the TDIWH Editorial Team.

Napoleon asked for it on his deathbed. Jane Austen wrote it into Sense and Sensibility as balm for a disappointed heart. The sweet wine of Constantia was one of the most celebrated luxuries in Europe. The people who actually made it were enslaved — and some of their names survive.

The most celebrated wine in Europe

For a century and more, Constantia was a name that meant luxury. On St Helena, the exiled Napoleon is said to have drunk close to a bottle of it a day, and near the end he refused other wine and asked for a glass of his Cape favourite. Jane Austen put it in Sense and Sensibility in 1811, where Mrs Jennings presses “the finest old Constantia wine in the house” on the heartbroken Marianne, and Elinor reflects on “its healing powers on a disappointed heart.” Dickens reached for it in 1870, and Baudelaire ranked it with opium.

Kings bought it too. Frederick the Great of Prussia and Louis-Philippe of France were among its admirers, and European courts were said to prize Constantia above Yquem and Tokay. One thing to keep straight: the original Constantia estate was later split, and both Groot Constantia and its neighbour Klein Constantia trace their lineage to that famous wine, so the question of whose cellar filled Napoleon’s crates is not fully settled. What is settled is who did the work at Groot Constantia.

April van de Kaap earned his freedom through the very skill that made the estate’s fortune — Cloete freed him, in his will, for his work in the cellar.

The names in the ledger

Hendrik Cloete bought Groot Constantia in 1778 and ran it until his death in 1799, and he was one of the Cape’s larger slaveholders. A muster of December 1788 records fifty enslaved men and ten enslaved women on the estate. Among them the wine was actually made: the household and farm included cellar workers, a brandy distiller, a mandoor — the foreman — gardeners, herders, a coachman, and dozens of labourers.

One name stands out because the record lets it. Cloete’s will freed several enslaved men, and the historian Rob Siebörger identifies one of them, recorded as April van de Kaap, as the cellar worker Cloete had taken on after dismissing an earlier one — and valued so highly that he freed him for his work. The estate’s most prized hand in the cellar was a man it had enslaved, freed at last for the very skill that made the wine.

Other names surface in the same documents. August van Bengale and Sabina van de Kaap served as body-servants to Cloete and his wife; his will directed that they be given lodging once they reached the age of sixty. The wine was European luxury. The craft was enslaved.

Andries, aged three

The archive that preserves the makers’ names also preserves the traffic in people, and one entry is hard to read past. In an estate auction in 1836, a three-year-old recorded as Andries of the Cape was sold to a free woman named Betje — almost certainly, the historian who found the record notes, his own mother, buying her child. That detail rests on a single scholarly source, and it should be held as exactly that, but it is the human ledger beneath the romance.

Slavery at the Cape had been abolished two years earlier, in 1834, though the freed were bound to their former owners as apprentices until 1838, and children were still being sold at insolvency auctions in the gap. The sweet wine went on being celebrated in London drawing rooms and on St Helena.

It is a small act of restoration to say the makers’ names. April van de Kaap, freed for his craft. August van Bengale and Sabina van de Kaap. The unnamed distiller and mandoor and cellar hands. And Andries, aged three. The wine was famous. They made it.

This day in wine history

• 1778 — Hendrik Cloete buys Groot Constantia, beginning the estate’s celebrated wine era, built on enslaved labour.
• December 1788 — A muster records fifty enslaved men and ten enslaved women on the estate.
• 1799 — Cloete dies; his will frees several enslaved people, including the cellar worker April van de Kaap.
• 1811 — Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility immortalises “the finest old Constantia wine.”
• 1816–1821 — Constantia is shipped to Napoleon in exile on St Helena, where he drinks it until his death.
• 1 December 1834 — Slavery is abolished at the Cape, with apprenticeship continuing to 1838.
• 1836 — A three-year-old, Andries of the Cape, is sold at auction to Betje, a free woman likely his mother.
• 1870 — Dickens references “a glass of Constantia and a home-made biscuit” in The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

Frequently asked questions

Read more

Read the wider story in Turning Points in Wine History, or return to This Day in Wine History.

Further reading

As an Amazon Associate, This Day in Wine History earns from qualifying purchases. Book links are affiliate links; cover images are used for identification.

Trials of Slavery
Nigel Worden and Gerald Groenewald
Court records naming enslaved Cape people behind the colony’s wine estates.

Slavery in Dutch South Africa
Nigel Worden
Foundational study of VOC-era Cape slavery underpinning the colony’s wine economy.

Sources

1. Rob Siebörger, “Groot Constantia: Wine or Slaves?” Public History Weekly 7, 2019 — the ~50 enslaved workers, April van de Kaap freed in the will, August and Sabina, the mandoor and distiller, and Andries (1836). public-history-weekly.org
2. Iziko Museums, “Slavery in South Africa — The Cloete era, 1778–1885” — muster figures, cellar-slaves, and the wills. iziko.org.za
3. Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility (1811), ch. XXX — the “finest old Constantia wine” passage (primary text). etc.usf.edu
4. Groot Constantia, “Grand Constance” estate history — the wine’s European admirers and the Napoleon supply. grootconstantia.co.za
5. “SA Wine History: Napoleon’s favourite Cape wine,” Winemag.co.za — the St Helena shipments and deathbed request. winemag.co.za
6. Charles Dickens, The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870), ch. 10 — the Constantia reference (primary text). etc.usf.edu

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