The approach to Château Pichon Baron, along the winding road downriver from Bordeaux, is a stunning sequence of farmland, virtually all of it devoted to wine growing. Just opposite Château Latour, and overlooking acres of vineyards that stretch down to the Gironde estuary, the 19th-century castle where I’m meeting my lunch date heaves into view.
After a brief wait in the magnificent foyer, Thomas Buberl appears — beaming and sporting a dapper checked suit.
I had expected the German chief executive of French insurance group Axa to be more downbeat. There will indeed be a fair amount of hand-wringing and advice-giving for policymakers in due course. He will bemoan the current “geopolitical disaster”, the underwriting and investment risks posed by the Iran war, and the danger that Europe fails to “reinvent itself”. He will also voice existential concern about the risk-sharing role of insurance and the industry’s ability to deal with bitter controversies over rebuffed insurance claims.