There is a genius in these English chalk soils that produces Champagne varietals – Chardonnay and Pinot Noir – of great quality, which even pandemics and late-spring frosts can’t affect.
Vineyards and Coronavirus
The story so far: after late spring frosts, record levels of rainfall and a resurgent pandemic, how will the harvest be affected?
Chardonnay Harvest 2020
The harvest is finally in.
Neither the coldest late-spring frost in decades (Diary Entry 4), nor the wettest day ever recorded in the UK (October 2, mid-harvest) – nor even a global pandemic – have managed to affect the quality of the fruit.
The harvest this year might be very small, but it’s undeniably beautiful.
A vintage year, despite it all…
This afternoon, with all the fruit now picked, I stood on the hill overlooking the vineyards.
They lie in the quiet, wooded hills between the clear chalk stream of the River Test that flows along the valley floor to the south and the high chalk ridge of Watership Down to the north, in a secluded v-shaped valley.
They are a winemaker’s dream, where chalk soils and clay caps disgorge rugged flints that help retain the heat of the sun, warming the top-soils; whilst in the late summer and early autumn the enclosed valley helps trap the last of the season’s heat to ripen the grapes.
Coates & Seely Pinot Noir vineyard during Harvest 2020
The fruit that then emerges contains the perfect balance of crisp acidity and sweetness, as well as the saline minerality, that lie at the heart of all great sparkling wine.
There is a genius in these English chalk soils that produces Champagne varietals – Chardonnay and Pinot Noir – of great quality, which even pandemics and late-spring frosts can’t affect.
People still express surprise when I say this, but why shouldn’t it be so?
It was as recently as 1830 that a Mr Cox, from Buckinghamshire, planted an English apple tree called an Orange Pippin. It was an experiment. Today, Cox’s Orange Pippin – with its razor-crisp flesh, beguiling sugars and thrilling acidity – is an apple unsurpassed anywhere in the world!
And so it is proving with English, chalk-grown grapes for sparkling wine. Just look at where the Champenois are now beginning to plant.
Coates & Seely Chardonnay grapes
As I turn my back to the vineyards to head home, my phone pings.
Trade talks with the EU have been abandoned.
I feel a sadness, after all we have been through together, that we can’t even agree our trading arrangements.
After all, ten thousand years ago you could still have walked – just – from where I am standing, overlooking the vineyards, all the way to the region of Champagne, before the ice-melt of the last glacial period finally severed the last remaining land connection to the rest of the European continent, setting us off on our long island story.
Geologically speaking we are at least first cousins.
We share, too, the same long hinterland of triumphs and endeavour and sacrifice, same side or not.
So whatever the final outcome, we shall continue to work with our continental friends, to learn from their craftsmanship, to enjoy our differences and to sell them our wines.
It will take more than politics to prevent that.
As it takes more than frost, or a pandemic, to degrade our wines.
Virginia Coates, Head of Events demonstrates local and seasonal food pairing with English sparkling wine from Coates & Seely.
Vineyards and Coronavirus
The story so far: life begins to return to something closer to normality, with the hospitality sector having taken the first early steps towards re-opening, (although crowd-related ‘events’ remain prohibited). Meanwhile, we have completed the first curated tours of Coates & Seely on ‘Albion’, our 1952 vintage coach…
In addition to a curated guide of the vineyards and winery, with transport provided by ‘Albion’, our tour-guests are also treated to food matching – with canapés made from our own ingredients or those of our neighbours – followed by lunch outside under Indian Mughal tents.
Virginia’s culinary skills at this point play a leading role, proving that the chalk soils of North Hampshire not only provide outstanding fruit for the production of English sparkling wine, but also the perfect ingredients for food pairings with our wines.
England has no food and wine ’vernacular’, in the way that French or Italian wine regions, for instance, have developed – sometimes over centuries – local food dishes that perfectly match the local wines, but we have made an exciting start at Coates & Seely, knowing that no wine is ever entirely complete without matching food and the deep pleasure of accompanying friendship.
Coates & Seely launch the private tours of their Hampshire vineyard and winery including sparkling wine tasting and food pairing lunch.
Vineyards and Coronavirus
The story so far: after battles with disappearing workforces, collapsing markets, devilish frosts and government fug, are we seeing the early glimpses of a return to a previous life?
In anticipation of the re-opening of the hospitality sector next week, and in an attempt to make up in some part for the lost, but essential, life pleasures of eating and drinking in beautiful surroundings, we have decided to open our Hampshire gardens and English Sparkling Wine vineyards and offer socially-distanced Private Tours of our vineyards and winery, followed by tastings, food pairings and lunch under Indian Mughul tents.
Given the constraints we are under the tours, filmed below, can only be taken by groups of 8-12 people and are aimed principally at the corporate hospitality sector or perhaps for those special occasions.
Coates & Seely applaud and salute the hospitality industry inspired by generosity and care for their staff and the vulnerable throughout the pandemic.
Vineyards and Coronavirus
The story so far: beyond the struggle to survive pandemics and mother nature, and through the chaos and absurdities of current lockdown policy, the shoots of practical self-help continue to take root.
Commedia dell’Arte – also known as Commedia alla Maschera (masked comedy), or Commedia Improvviso – is said to have died out in the late 18th century.
Nevertheless, it appears to be making a concerted comeback, in only the thinnest of disguises, with our current leadership.
What could be more ‘improvised’ (and comic, if it weren’t so tragic) than the current farrago around quarantine?
Or a more perfect comic plot than the tortured issue of wearing (or not wearing) (or being seen to wear) a face ‘mask’?
It is as if Il Capitano, Scaramouche and Il Dottore have metamorphosed into some of our most (or least!) eminent politicians. (We will leave it to you to apply names to characters. By email, please – the best suggestions to qualify for a bottle of Coates & Seely).
Away from this hopeless mess, it is heartening to see so many of our clients within the hospitality sector – one of the worst to be hit by the pandemic – emerge with initiatives of their own, fired both by generosity and resourcefulness.
Into the first category fall the Caprice Group of restaurants, who in conjunction with the Richard Caring Foundation have opened the kitchens of The Ivy Collection, Scott’s, Annabel’s, Le Caprice and Bill’s across the country to provide 50,000 meals a week to the vulnerable throughout the pandemic. And our dear friends at Food Show, one of the most renowned events caterers in London, who have done something very similar.
These are wonderful, real-life performances, inspired by generosity and care for their staff, which we applaud and salute.
Initiative and resourcefulness also abound. Skye Gyngell of Spring and Heckfield Place has helped protect their inspired kitchen garden at Heckfield, their bio-dynamic farm supplier, Fern Verrow in Herefordshire, as well their own chefs, by supplying their renowned sourdough breads and kefir butter, cakes, jams and cordials and specialist store cupboard ingredients for their stranded London customers via an on-line shop.
Simon and Jason, at The Wellington Arms in Baughurst, have done something similar, turning their restaurant into the Welli Deli where each morning you can find their signature cheese soufflés, crab & asparagus quiches and home-grown miniature vegetables, along with bottles of Coates & Seely, alongside a good-natured gathering of satisfied local customers.
In London, the Cubitt House group have turned The Coach Makers Arms, The Orange and The Alfred Tennyson into purveyors of the finest takeaways; whilst the deeply talented Jonny Lake and Isa Bal – previously head chef and head sommelier, respectively, at The Fat Duck – have launched an online shop to supplement Trivet, their quite outstanding new restaurant in Bermondsey, which we urge you all to visit the minute lockdown is over (it is the most exciting new restaurant in London).
All of these inspirational establishments, as well as hundreds of our other friends within the industry, will in time thrive once more in providing outstanding service, at the very highest levels, to their devoted customers.
But we do urgently need the current cast of comic characters to speak their final lines, promptly, clearly and judiciously, without contradiction or inconsistency, and to remove themselves from the hospitality stage as soon as possible, as has now been done in almost every other European country.
Not just to save jobs, companies and whole industries, but to save livelihoods.
To ensure success, they might also quarantine the Home Secretary…
Finally, to soften this rather irritable tone, we invite all our friends of Coates & Seely to put themselves forward to win a fabulous prize of bottles of Coates & Seely, boxes of Summerdown Mint Chocolates and photo frames from our friends at Addison Ross.
Christian Seely of Coates & Seely talks about Vintage English Sparkling ‘La Perfide’ 2011.
Vineyards and Coronavirus
The story so far: from the Coates’ temporary office arrangements inside Albion, parked outside their Hampshire home, we move to the Seely home office in Bordeaux…
In addition to creating, under lockdown conditions, quarantinis of cosmopolitan brilliance (this week’s is a blend of Château Suduiraut and Coates & Seely in a one third, two thirds combination to produce the ‘Entente Cordiale’), Christian has embarked of late on a highly successful movie career.
Here we see him in his latest epic, ‘La Perfide (2011)’, (remember ‘El Cid’?), which tells the story of a small and select batch of the 2011 harvest’s finest grapes, converted to 300 individually numbered magnums of vintage Coates & Seely Brut Reserve, the last 100 of which are now being offered exclusively to Friends of Coates & Seely.
This vintage wine, which is a gold medal winner and won, on its release, the Trophy for the Most Outstanding English Vintage Sparkling Wine (UK Wine Awards), has been on strict allocation since its launch in 2018 and has been selling for prices in excess of £110 per magnum.
With the restaurant trade currently closed, we are now delighted to be in a position to offer these magnums exclusively to Friends of Coates & Seely at the reduced price of £90 per magnum.
It is drinking perfectly and is at its very best now.
Finally, a second movie, ‘The Entente Cordiale’, shows our up and coming matinee idol in a role in which he’s arguably at his very best.
The action depicted in this film specifically should be followed at home.
Nicholas Coates doesn’t miss the commute. In the latter years of his investment banking career, which he left at the age of 47 after working at Royal Bank of Scotland and ING Barings, he’d catch the 5:41 a.m. train to London and arrive back at his manor house in the Hampshire countryside around 10:30 p.m. Now Coates, 60, just walks through the rose garden between his home and the bucolic headquarters of Coates & Seely, a maker of English sparkling wine that he co-founded to take on Champagne at its own game.
It’s a calling that beckons a growing number of financiers. Bankers, hedge fund managers, and corporate lawyers are quitting London’s financial sector for England’s burgeoning vineyards. They’re buying up land in Kent, Sussex, and Hampshire and planting grapes among fields once reserved for wheat or cattle.
The path from rainmaker to winemaker is well-traveled. Historically, financiers fled to the châteaux of Bordeaux, the rolling hills of Tuscany, or sunny Napa Valley. So when Coates began telling friends and family in 2007 of his ambition to challenge Champagne in his wet and gray backyard, there wasn’t a great deal of enthusiasm. His father likened the venture to building a car in North Korea and going up against Rolls-Royce.
Since then, English wine has changed from a novelty or joke into a serious contender. In 2019, Coates & Seely’s sparkling 2009 La Perfide—named for “perfidious Albion,” an 18th century French playwright’s characterization of Britain—beat out French rivals to win a trophy at the International Wine & Spirit Competition in London, sometimes called the Oscars of Alcohol. “I wouldn’t want people to think that it’s easy, because it’s phenomenally hard work,” Coates says in his living room, where the walls are hung with unsmiling portraits of his family’s bewigged ancestors. “A lot of our blood, sweat, and tears went into this.”
The unusually hot summer of 2018 encouraged more producers to join the fray. For all its dangerous downsides, global warming also makes it possible to regularly ripen grapes at latitudes once considered marginal for cultivation. Overall output of wine in England and Wales increased to 13.2 million bottles in 2018, from 5 million in 2015, according to trade body Wine GB. The area under vine has risen 83% since 2015, to more than 8,800 acres.
Vintners have focused on sparkling wine because the English growing regions’ chalky soil is similar to that of Champagne, and producers of one of France’s signature luxury products have responded. For the likes of Vranken-Pommery and Taittinger, producing in England is a way to hedge bets and protect a key market no matter what happens with Brexit. The U.K. is Champagne’s biggest export outlet, with 27 million bottles shipped in 2018, according to trade organization Comité Champagne. That’s more than double the total production of wine in England and Wales, most of which is consumed domestically.
“The U.K. has historically been the shop window for the world, in that Champagne producers want their wines showcased here, where there is established demand,” says Davy Zyw, sparkling wine buyer at merchant Berry Brothers & Rudd. “But there’s a finite volume for vintage Champagne, and we’ve got a quality product that’s homegrown and can compete at that level.” Demand for British wine has been fueled by greater availability at retailers such as upmarket grocer Waitrose, which carries more than 100 choices, as well as at pubs and restaurants.
Winemakers are often motivated by convivial factors beyond the bottom line. In October 2007, a year after retiring from a career building high-yield debt markets in Europe, Coates flew with his family from London to Bordeaux to visit Christian Seely, a friend who was already in the wine business. Coates had known Seely since their days studying at Insead business school near Paris.
The Englishmen stayed up drinking fine wine and watching their home country lose to South Africa in that year’s Rugby World Cup final. In the early hours, Seely opened a second bottle of Pol Roger Champagne, uttering a maxim variously attributed to Napoleon or Winston Churchill: “In victory one deserves it. In defeat, one needs it.”
It was then that Coates suggested planting vines in the south of England. To his surprise, it turned out that Seely, who heads the management of about a dozen prized vineyards around the world owned by French insurer AXA, had been trying to sell a similar business proposal to his stepfather. They hired talented winemakers from Champagne to help them bottle a range of wines that now start at £31.95 ($42) per bottle.
“You need to learn from someone, just like the Romans did from the Greeks,” Coates says, slipping into navy velvet slippers to stoke a crackling fire. “For us, the Champenois are the Greeks, and we aspire, one day, to be the Romans.” Because of the similarities between Champagne’s terroir and the English turf, there’s a “huge value delta” between the two regions, Coates says. A hectare (about 2.5 acres) of vineyard in Champagne can cost more than €1 million ($1.1 million), 10 or 20 times the cost of a similarly sized plot in England.
Still, would-be investors must take a long view: Coates & Seely took about eight years to break even. After securing key accounts in the U.K., including the Jockey Club, a horse-racing consortium, and the Historic Royal Palaces, Coates wants to build his sparkling wine brand on the international stage. It’s already gained a foothold in key Parisian battlegrounds such as the George V Hotel and chef Alain Ducasse’s flagship restaurant. It’s now sold in eight countries, and Coates has hired his son Tristram to drive more expansion abroad over the next decade.
“After that, I have a hammock out in the garden, and my ultimate dream is to swing in the hammock as permanent life president of the company and be paid to do absolutely nothing,” Coates says. “If anyone was ever going to write my obituary, I wanted a bit more on it than ‘investment banker.’ ”
