Brad Pitt with wine-maker Marc Perrin (pic: Swipe Films/Marc Perrin)
“Come quickly…I am drinking the stars” runs the famous quote (perhaps apocryphal) attributed to the French monk Dom Perignon in the late 17th Century after he became the first to sample the sparkling wine later known as champagne.
Whether or not the monk ever said any such thing, the line has been used to advertise the beverage ever since.
Now, ebullient producer-distributor-sales agent Frank Mannion, boss of London-based Swipe Films, is taking the plunge into directing with Sparkling: The Story Of Champagne, a feature documentary that looks into the origins of one of the world’s favourite and fizziest luxury drinks.
Movie star Brad Pitt, who produces his own pink champagne with renowned wine maker Marc Perrin, appears in the documentary. “I have to say I very much enjoyed it,” Mannion says of Pitt’s Champagne Fleur De Miraval. “You can buy it in Fortnum & Masons now. You can tell the readers that the perfect gift for Valentine’s Day is Brad Pitt’s excellent pink champagne.”
Also featuring prominently is British author, comedian and actor, Stephen Fry.
“The idea for the documentary came from ‘well, let’s go and investigate Dom Perignon and find out about him,’” Mannion explains.
The world knows champagne as “bubbly” but, during his research, Mannion discovered it was originally a still red wine. It was the “drink of celebration” for kings being crowned in the Cathedral in Reims as far back as the Fifth Century but It only became effervescent in the 1700s.
“We also found lots of surprising things such as, due to climate change in the Champagne region, that champagne owners, who are always incredibly entrepreneurial, have started buying thousands of acres in the south of England. For instance, Pommery and Taittinger have bought 20,000 acres in Kent and Hampshire,” the director notes.
The soil in the Champagne region is chalky – and so is the soil in southern England. As Mannion points out, the White Cliffs of Dover are “the greatest manifestation of white chalk. It (chalk soil) doesn’t stop in Champagne. It goes all the way up through Kent, Sussex and Hampshire. That is why there is such a boom in English sparkling wine.”
Drinkers turn to champagne for different reasons. It isn’t just for celebrations. During lockdown, sales of champagne and fizzy white wine have “skyrocketed.” “Napoleon famously said ‘in victory you deserve it, in defeat you need it,’” Mannion explains why this is a drink for all seasons and all occasions.
One of Mannion’s interviewees is Sir Nicholas Soames, the grandson of one of England’s most prodigious champagne drinkers, namely Winston Churchill. The wartime British prime minister is thought to have drunk 40,000 pint-sized bottles of Pol Roger during his lifetime.
Thanks to Brexit, EU regulations no longer prevent champagne being sold in the Imperial Pint measure that Churchill favoured.
Other notable names in the documentary include Taittinger president Vitalie Taittinger and wine writer Oz Clarke.
Mannion set up Swipe Films in 2002. Alongside the many dramatic features he has handled over the last 20 years, among them Grand Theft Parsons and Jackboots On Whitehall, he has regularly picked up documentaries. Docs that Swipe has sold include Mike Figgis’ Co/Ma (2004) and Paperclips (2004), for which American school kids collected 6 million paper clips representing the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust. Swipe also had success with Gilles Legrand’s French wine-themed Oedipal drama Tu Seras Mon Fils, about tensions between a father and son running a vineyard in Bordeaux.
Ask why Mannion has finally turned director after years of producing, distributing and selling and he says the coronavirus pandemic was partly responsible. “You have to abide by all sorts of Covid regulations [while shooting].” Crew numbers are limited and Mannion realised that he if directed himself, that would mean one less person on set.
Sparkling wine and champagne producers have been classified as essential workers during the Covid lockdown. Filmmaking has also been permitted. This has meant the documentary was able to go ahead as planned.
Sparkling: The Story of Champagne was privately financed. It is produced by Oxana Popkova, working alongside Mannion.
Over the years, Mannion has always been one of the more imaginative ‘marketeers’ in UK distribution. True to form, he is already planning stunts to get his documentary noticed and talked about. Wine merchant Tony Laithwaite features in the film and Swipe Films is planning a tie-in with Laithwaite’s massive wine mail order company.
“Tony has written a great autobiography as well so we will more than likely do a champagne/film/book offer for that.”
Mannion will also be working with Diamonds Hatton Garden on a special preview screening in the summer. “One glass of champagne served will have a diamond necklace at the bottom of it.”
Bubbling with enthusiasm after his directorial debut, Mannion is already directing another documentary (although it is too early, he says, to reveal details of what it is about). In the meantime, Swipe Films will begin sales on Sparkling: The Story Of Champagne during Berlin and are hoping to pop the cork on the completed film at a hybrid Cannes Festival, likely to happen in June, Covid-permitting.
“Hopefully, buyers will think it is an excellent vintage,” Mannion states in solemn fashion.
