Christian Seely, managing director of AXA Millesimés, which owns properties like Quinta do Noval and Tokaji’s Disznoko, is setting up an English sparkling wine project. In less than an hour from the pandemonium of Waterloo station, I was in his new tranquil vineyard to find out more.
Seely has set up the venture independently of AXA (apparently AXA weren’t interested in English vineyards) with an old friend who used to work in banking, Nicholas Coates.
The Hampshire vineyard has 5 hectares of 15 year-old Pinot Noir and German vines. The German varieties will be grafted over with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay later this year. This spring, Seely brought over his Douro vineyard workers to plant a further 7ha of the Champagne varieties on a south-east facing chalk slope (apparently the Bordelais soil analyst told the pair “vous avez le sol Champenoisâ€).
A farm building on the property is being converted to a winery in time for the harvest and Seely’s winemaking wife will be making the base wines (I may be lending a hand this autumn!). Consultants from Champagne will be brought in to oversee the sparkling wine process.
The first wine should be released in time for Christmas 2011. Seely says he plans to have both a rosé and a white sparkling wine; vintage and non-vintage cuvées.
There are hopes for a cellar door and a website is promised. Seely’s even planning a blog to keep us updated but he’s drawing the line at twitter!
For more information, see my article on decanter.com.
