After reaching our westernmost destination on our Alps-Atlantic trip at Biarritz (click here to see related posts), we came back via Bordeaux and stopped for a few days to explore the area.
The Cité du Vin is a museum as well as a place of exhibitions and academic seminars on the theme of wine located in the city of Bordeaux.
The building, meant to suggest a decanter, was designed by Anouk Legendre and Nicolas Desmazières of XTU architects.
La Cite du Vins was official opened by the President, François Hollande on May 31, 2016. So the place is not even a year old, it is brand new.
The building has 8 floors with most of the exhibition spaces and classrooms on the lower floors.
In an open exhibition space occupying more than 3,000 m², nearly twenty different themed areas invite you to take a voyage of discovery and enjoy a unique experience exploring the many and varied facets of wine across time and space.
One can spend hours watching, listening, and even smelling the exhibits. There is so much media content to be consumed.
One darkened area has several tables where visitors can sit around and watch a virtual host explain various topics – history, entertaining, food pairing.
The table is actually a screen and the image changes continuously – sometimes it is a dining table but it could morph into another image seamlessly and quickly.
There were several tables that allow visitors to discern the aromas present in a wine. A squeeze of the small black rubber bulb releases the aroma which can be inhaled from the copper horn.
This part of the exhibition was unique in that they provided many different sources of aroma.
We participated in a multi-sensory workshop where we tasted several wines, learnt about its origin (not all were French) and pairing with food around the world. It is “multi-sensory” because certain aromas were sprayed into the room to invoke a sense of a place and its food which were projected on surround screen.
The workshop was entertaining and its delivery employed state of the art technology.
There are 2 restaurants. We did not eat there. Our entry ticket include a free glass of wine to be enjoyed at the belvedere which affords a 360 degree view of the northern end of Bordeaux city and the river Garonne.
“Downtown” direction view of the city of Bordeaux.
There is a souvenir shop “La Boutique” which sells every wine-related gifts one can imagine.
Next to it is the wine store which stocks thousands of bottles from around the world. Not just Bordeaux or French, a truly comprehensive international collection.
We spent almost the entire day here. The city really did a good job in creating this museum to educate and promote wine culture, and giving adults the sense of fun that kids have in a themed amusement park.