Ex-bankers plough their money into vineyards in England, hoping to beat Champagne at its own game
- Former London financiers’ passion for the grape has seen English wine go from being a novelty or joke to a respected product
- Most produce sparkling wine, given soil’s similarity to that in Champagne, and its quality is so good French are investing in UK wineries to hedge their bets
Nicholas Coates does not 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 5.41am train to London and arrive back at his manor house in the Hampshire countryside in the UK, around 10.30pm.
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 travelled. Historically, financiers fled to the chateaux 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 grey 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.
