Andre Rousseau

Andre Rousseau is married with two young sons and lives on Constantia Uitsig Farm. His interest and passion for wine stems from his father, who designed labels for South African Wine. It was here that Andre started asking all the “why” questions; he was much more interested in the product inside than the packaging. He decided to enroll at the famous Wine College, Elsenburg, in Stellenbosch, In 1990 Andre made the leap and started working at Twee Jonge Gezellen Cellar in Tulbach, where he produced his first vintage.

Andre Rousseau is married with two young sons and lives on Constantia Uitsig Farm. His interest and passion for wine stems from his father, who designed labels for South African Wine. It was here that Andre started asking all the “why” questions; he was much more interested in the product inside than the packaging. He decided to enroll at the famous Wine College, Elsenburg, in Stellenbosch, In 1990 Andre made the leap and started working at Twee Jonge Gezellen Cellar in Tulbach, where he produced his first vintage. He worked very closely with the wine maker Nicky Krone, whose father was the first Winemaker to introduce cold fermentation in SA. In 1990 there was only 4 “Champagne Houses” in SA and Twee Jonge Gezellen was one of the pioneers in Method Cap Classique. From here, Andre had a short and very successful stint in the corporate world, but in 1998, he decided to take a break from the corporate environment and get back into the vineyards, where he was employed by Constantia Uitsig as the Viticulturist. He has always been a firm believer that wine making starts in the vineyards and looking at the unique terroir he saw the potential at Constantia Uitsig to produce world class white cultivars. Before long, he introduced a new irrigation system, Neutron probes, a device that was not commonly used in SA before and an innovative canopy management system. Andre loves the great outdoors and is very passionate about the environment and Biodiversity. This is why he introduced natural parasites into his vineyards instead of using chemicals and got the Constantia Valley Winemakers on board by introducing this concept in the entire valley In 2002 Andre took his vineyards knowledge more actively into the cellar and started making wine full time for Constantia Uitsig where he introduced new styles and cultivars. Bordeaux white blends are still much unknown in South Africa, but Andre’s scored 4½ stars in the SA John Platter Guide for his 2004 vintage and 4½ stars for his 2005 Semillon, which is by no means an ordinary feat. Realizing that there is a trend to a lighter style of Chardonnay Andre also introduced the first unwooded Chardonnay at Constantia Uitsig. This wine usually sells out within 7 months of release. His unwooded Chardonnay has also been voted in the South African Sunday Times Top Ten for 5 consecutive weeks in 2007. Andre has always had a love for Method Cap Classique, he will be releasing the maiden vintage made in the traditional French style in November 2007, Andre played Provincial Rugby and SA Colleges for many years, and when he is not working you can find him in his garden kicking a ball about with his two young sons, ages 7 and 10.