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vintage selection
From celluloid to Chateau-bottled, film entrepreneur Guy East unreels his plans for the BAFTA Wine Club
Guy East ‘sells’ wine with the same enthu- siasm he extols his films. One moment he may be excitedly recalling Oscar- winners like Dances With Wolves and Driving Miss Daisy or a recent release like The Life Of David Gale, the next he’s posi- tively purring about Chateau Bauduc 2000 or vintage cham- pagne.
East is the man behind the new BAFTA Wine Club but he’s probably much better
known as the founder of compa- nies like Majestic Films and, more recently, Intermedia which have produced and distributed mil- lions of dollars worth of movies over the past 15 years.
A one-time city lawyer who first learned the art of film sales- manship from the late Lord Lew Grade, East, 51, moved on via Goldcrest and Carolco, to start up Majestic in 1988.
By the time he sold the com- pany four years later to the Italian Rizzoli Group, he’d also become a regular client of a small Sussex- based import outfit called Longford Wines, created by Peter Harris, a former tax adviser.
Always a keen wine drinker, East recalls being impressed from the start by the Longford set-up so when Harris asked him about a year ago if he’d like to be more closely involved, East not only said ‘yes’ but actually ended up buying the whole company.
Said East: “I met Peter about 12 years ago and started buying his wine on a regular basis. They
are, principally, French wines, some Australian and we’re just about to bring over some South African ones too. It’s all mail order.
“There’s no shop and the overhead’s low with three employees in Sussex as well as three consultants who only come in when we need them for con- tacts and buying. Of course, Peter and the whole team are still very much involved and run the company with me.
“What we’re trying to do specifically is find wines which are of a high quality but which are not generally produced in suffi- cient quantity for them to appear in a supermarket.
“You might find our wines in a well-known restaurant (like Rick Stein’s in Padstow or Gordon Ramsay’s at Claridges) or even occasionally in an up-market wine store but our niche, if you like, is to try and find high-quality wines, mainly from France, that you wouldn’t find in the mass market.”
With fresh impetus, Longford was, says East, “progressing very well” when he had a new brain- wave. A long-time member of the Academy, why, he suddenly thought, “doesn’t BAFTA have its own wine club?”
“I came and saw Kevin Price who was very enthusiastic, it was put through the committee and the result is a deal, especially for BAFTA members for whom there’s no extra membership cost. It’s basically an additional service. What we at Longford are saying is: here are some great quality wines at a reasonable price and they will be delivered to your door.”
Just how reasonable? “We have the regular Longford list which any BAFTA member is wel- come to look at and then in each future issue of ACADEMY there will be an ad with our spe- cial selection of wines. We’re try- ing to give everyone about 15 per cent off our list price – and our list price is generally a very good deal anyway. I really do think it’s good value for everyone concerned.”
As for quality? If East’s own undiluted enthusiasm is any guide then there is some seriously deli- cious ‘bibbing’ in store -especially for fans of champagne, Longford has closed a deal with a couple of small growers to provide an exclusive 1996 vintage at under £20 a bottle.
A particular advocate of Burgundy, he points to his selec- tion from the late Pierre Andre’s vineyards as well as some promis- ing recent purchases from the famous auctions at the Hospices de Beaune.
‘The idea with the Club is to give it a go and see if people like it. We know it may take some time. The important thing now is to make people aware. For me, it’s a very serious hobby with a substantial amount of money invested.”
It’s a day – plus the odd trip –
a week of his normal working life which is still mainly centred around film. After setting up Intermedia in 1995, East and his partner Nigel Sinclair eventually took it public in Germany after hooking up with the Pacifica Group.
Eventually they resigned from the board to set up Spitfire Pictures, which has a finance and distribution deal with Intermedia.
But even as Spitfire starts to take flight, as it were, East’s lega- cy at Intermedia continues with films like Dark Blue, Basic and Terminator 3 following hard on the heels of recent successes like Iris, The Quiet American, Adaptation, K-PAX and The Wedding Planner.
East sees a connection between his two working lives: “There’s genuine excitement when they make a great wine just as we have when we get a great film. And like a really great wine, a fine film will also last for- ever.” Quentin Falk
Photo above: Guy East enjoying a glass of wine
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