Bordeaux attracts architectural heavyweights

Bordeaux mayor Alain Juppé will this week select five teams of architects from around the world to submit designs for the city’s proposed wine museum.

Renzo Piano, designer of the Pomipidou centre in Paris, is rumoured to be in the running for the €55 million project on the banks of the Garonne river, dubbed the Centre of Wine Culture and Tourism (CCTV).

Speaking of the project, Sylvie Cazes, president of Domaines Jean-Michel Cazes and Bordeaux city counsellor, told the drinks business: “We’ve had an incredible number of responses from all over the world.”

She also stressed the suitability of a designated site for the museum in an old ironworks on the city’s wet dock and alongside a proposed new bridge spanning the Garonne.

“The location is very well organised for visiting all the wine regions,” she stated, adding that the project was part of a wider scheme to connect the city with the outlying vineyards as well as increase tourism.

As president of the Union des Grand Crus de Bordeaux (UGCB) she further talked of an aim to strengthen the link between the Bordelais and the eventual consumer.

“One thing that Patrick [Maroteaux, former UGCB president] started and I will implement more is to get closer to consumers,” she said, refering to initiatives such as the Weekend des Grands Amateurs consumer tasting in Bordeaux, which next year will be called The Weekend des Grands Crus, as well as more tastings abroad, in particular Brazil and India.

Cazes insisted, whatever and wherever the occasion, it’s “fundamental that there is always someone from the property behind the bottle.”

She also said: “Brodeaux needs to be out more”.

For a full interview with Sylvie Cazes, db’s Woman of the Year 2010, see December’s issue of the drinks business (pages 14-17)

Patrick Schmitt, 16.12.2010