A glass wine bottle, marked 'CON STANTIA WYN', South Africa 18th/19th Century.

Groot Constantia is the oldest wineyard in South Africa. Founded in 1685 by the Dutch Governor Simon van de Stel. The original name of the farm was Constantia, two years after the death of van de Stels it was acquired by the Swedish captain and adventurer Olof Bergh. Olof Bergh was born in Gothenburg in 1643, and early on entered in to service for the Dutch East India Company (VOC). After a period, whilst he had been stationed Ceylon (Sri Lanka) amongst other places, he ended up in South Africa in 1676. Here he met his wife, Anna de Koningh, who after his death in 1724 became the first female owner of Groot Constantia. The vineyard, then switched owners several times until 1885, when the South African government bought it at auction.
They operated the farm until 1993, when it was transformed into to a foundation.
Large quantities of wine were exported from South Africa during the 17th and 18th Century to Europe and USA. The wine was extremely popular among the royal families and the more affluent in Europe. It is said that Napoleon was supplied with wine from Groot Constantia during his last years on St. Helena from 1815 to 1821. Authors such as Charles Dickens and Charles Baudelaire mentions Constantia in his works, and Jane Austen recommends in "Sense and Sensibility" Constantia - a solace for a broken heart.
Shards of bottles can be found in collections in Germany. In 2004 several shards was found in the United States wreckage of the British ship "Severn" which in 1774 sank off Lewes Beach, Delaware. Among the shipwreck seals from wine bottles with the text Constantia Wyn was found. Seal from these fragments were then used as the model of the bottles on the anniversary wine Grand Constance, which was released to commemorate the 325 year anniversary in 2010. Old bottles from Groot Constantia in good condition, very rarely occur on the open market. The Wine & Spirits Historical Museum in Stockholm recently found an intact bottle at an inventory of their collections. The bottle is just like the auction bottle, a seafind from Stockholm archipelago.