Nine years ago I interviewed the Englishman at the head of AXA Millésimes, the wine division of the French insurance group. Then 44, Christian Seely spoke entertainingly but guardedly about his progression from Insead business school to Guinness Mahon bank to reviving AXA’s port property Quinta do Noval. In 2000, he was given overall responsibility for AXA’s wine properties in Bordeaux, Burgundy, Languedoc, Portugal and Hungary.
When I saw him again last week, presenting a vertical tasting in London of Noval’s most famous wine, Quinta do Noval Nacional vintage port, he seemed to have thrown caution to the winds. Indiscretion followed delightful indiscretion. Perhaps this confidence is due to his success in building, over 20 years with AXA, the long-term capital value of its enviable portfolio (cunningly selling off the underperforming Château Cantenac Brown in Margaux, for example). He now seems fearless, as well as popular, and has branched out into his own personal English sparkling wine, Coates & Seely, with an old Insead chum. The next release will be called Le Perfide. (He wanted to call the wine Albion but found that too many builders and plumbers had appropriated the name.)
Another personal venture, Quinta da Romaneira in the Douro, has been rather less successful. As a luxury hotel in such an isolated location it proved a folly, fuelled presumably by Seely’s personal love affair with the region. But, like a good Insead graduate, he has managed to find a Brazilian wine lover to take over what was the hotel half of the property as his holiday home. The quality of the Douro table wines made alongside port at both Quinta da Romaneira and Quinta do Noval has been improving impressively.