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The
Christian Seely interview
 Bow-tied
40-something Christian Seely is a very important dude. After the wine
arm of French insurance group AXA purchased Quinta do Noval in the
Douro, in 1993, it was Christian’s job to revitalize it. He spent
seven years in the Douro, and did a great job. He was rewarded by
being given charge of all of AXA-Millésimes properties on the
retirement of Jean-Michel Cazes in 2000, which as well as Noval
include Pichon-Baron, Petit Village and Suduiraut in Bordeaux, Belles
Eaux in the Languedoc, as well as Disznókó in Hungary. I caught up
with him in London before the Bibendum Bordeaux 2005 en
primeur tastings in April 2006.
Natural
wine
I kicked off by asking him what he thought of the
concept of ‘natural wine’: is it meaningful or important? ‘You
can’t make wine great by technological means alone’, was his
response. ‘The properties I look after all have one thing in common:
they have great vineyards and terroir: this is what creates great
wines’.
Seely gave the example of Pichon-Baron. ‘It has 70
hectares, but 40 hectares of these are the ones that make the great
wine.’ He explained that they do everything the same for all 70
hectares, and the winemaking is the same, but continually, year after
year, the greatest wine comes from the greatest terroir. ‘If
technology alone were enough, then this shouldn’t be so’,
maintains Seely. ‘There’s something special about the “place”
that gives the wine the character, and we have to be humble in the
face of that’. There are limits to what technology and winemaking
can achieve.
Traditional
versus modern Bordeaux
I quizzed Seely on stylistic issues in Bordeaux. What did he think
about the new wave ‘international’-style wines that the
traditionalists are so alarmed about? Is it possible to make a fake or
dishonest wine by aiming for super-ripeness from low yields and then
pushing the wine in the winery? ‘I wouldn’t say that a wine like
that isn’t honest’, was his response, ‘At the end of a year wine
is a result of many things, including the decisions people have
taken—their idea of what they should be doing in the vineyards’. I
suggest to Seely that he’s a bit of a libertarian at heart, and he
doesn’t disagree. ‘They [the wineries making modern-styled wines] are doing their best to make the greatest
wine they can, and as consumers you can choose whether to buy them or
not. Those techniques require lots of expense and they aren’t done
out of laziness’. Seely adds, ‘It’s too easy to condemn what
someone else does: the fascinating thing is the extreme diversity of
wine.’
Seely won’t be drawn into discussions about
particularly controversial Bordeaux wines. ‘There are wines that
polarize opinion, but I find it rather interesting’, he comments.
‘If a wine excites extreme disagreement among those who taste it,
then why not?’ In true libertarian fashion, Seely leaves it all up
to the individual. ‘It’s up to the person who buys the bottle to
decide, and to decide which critic to agree with. The wonderful thing
about wine is that it inspires passion: the worst thing would be if
people were indifferent.’
Closures
I apologise for raising the
subject of closures, an important but potentially boring topic. ‘I wouldn’t be ready to change the closure on
Pichon Baron, Noval or Suduiraut, which are wines made to be aged over
a long time’, maintains Seely. He reckons that it’s too soon to
make these decisions, and more time is needed for trials. These trials
are underway, and bottles of Pichon have been sealed with various
alternative closures: the idea is to leave them for 10–15 years to
see how they do. ‘Personally, I’m quite attached to the romance of
the cork, but as a significant consumer of wine I have disappointments
at home. It’s upsetting.’
2005
Bordeaux
Seely admits that en primeur
time isn’t a comfortable one. ‘It’s a terrifying time: it’s
not just that year’s work that is under examination, it’s the
quality levels of the Château that are the result of
cumulative extraordinary hard work. When you put a vintage into bottle
it is not just that year that is being judged, but everything you have
done.’ But 2005 seems to be pretty well received. ‘I think it’s
a great and outstanding vintage. In fact, from 2000–2005 we have had
a series of wonderful vintages’, adds Seely. 2001, 2002 and 2004
haven’t attracted hype, but 2000, 2003 and 2005 have. ‘2004 is a
year that no one is really excited about, but it is also a beautiful,
great vintage’. What about critics? ‘There are three or four who
are more important than most, but usually with a vintage there is a
cumulative weight of journalistic opinion: you can see quite soon how
the wind is blowing.’ But he adds that, ‘the most important thing
is that people who buy the wines and drink them will have their own
opinions in the end.’
Has Bordeaux changed much in recent decades? ‘Very
much’, says Seely. ‘The technology hasn’t changed much, but the
way people work in the vineyards has. ‘Most of the great properties
are stricter with themselves than they used to be, eliminating grapes
that aren’t perfect. The final selection of the grand vin is also
much stricter.’ He gives some examples. Pichon Baron in the 1990s
produced 300–380 000 bottles each year; Since 2000 it has been
200–270 000 bottles.
‘The reason for this is that it is worth our while to
do it’, says Seely. ‘The market rewards excellence, and there is a
corresponding increase in demand and price when you make a great
wine.’
Noval
I asked Seely whether he had any plans to make a table
wine from Quinta do Noval. The answer is that one is soon to be
released. ‘We have made one in the past, but not from the best
grapes. We replanted lots of Noval’s vineyards in the period
1994–6, and now we are starting to have Touriga Nacional, Touriga
Franca and Tinta Cao in quantities to be able to start experimenting.
In 2004 we came up with a wine worthy to bear the Noval name.’ 1000
cases will be produced. I mentioned to Seely that I’d been hugely
impressed with the 2003 vintage Port from Noval. What was the secret?
‘It is the cumulative work that has taken place here since 1993’,
he reports. Two things have changed: ‘We have been applying the same
ruthlessness in the vineyard with respect to fruit that we do in
Bordeaux: we reject shrivelled grapes and those with rot’. But this
trie in the vineyard is not east to achieve: the pickers have a
problem with wasting grapes. ‘It is difficult to get people to
change their techniques, so we do a preliminary trie in the vineyard,
picking out the rubbish fruit’, says Seely. The second change has
been to replant much of the vineyard. Noval has 66 hectares, and 35 of
these were replanted in the first three years, all with Touriga
Nacional, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Cao, a bit of Tinta Barocca and a bit of
Touriga Francesa. These 1994/5 replantings were in the 2003 Vintage
Port.
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