Bordeaux’s $81 Million Cité Du Vin Aims to Be the Guggenheim of Wine

On June 1st, Bordeaux’s newest attraction will open on the banks of the river Garonne: the Cité du Vin, or City of Wine. The  $81 million project is housed in a futuristic building said to be inspired by a snifter of Burgundy swilling around a glass, though it also evokes a cow horn used in biodynamic wine harvesting. This design, by Parisian architects XTU, was chosen from a shortlist of five. “The four other could have been anything—an airport, a hotel—and we didn’t want a wonderful, empty box,” explains director Philippe Massol by cellphone from Bordeaux. Nicknamed the Guggenheim of Wine, the Cité du Vin isn’t aimed at buttressing the reputation of Bordeaux’s local vintages or even that of the region. Rather, it wants to position the city as the capital of winemaking across the world, the only place that brings an industry spanning around 80 countries together in one gleaming new site. It uses 20 different multimedia installations to do so, telling the story of wine in a distinctly French way. Here are some highlights – and don’t worry, there’s a bar or two on site, too.