La Cité du Vin de Bordeaux s’exporte en Chine avec un musée XXL
Inaugurated on May 31, 2016, the Cité du Vin de Bordeaux inspired China to create a Universal Wine Museum. Scheduled for 2024, this future Chinese temple dedicated to Bacchus is under construction in the Fangshan district, about forty kilometers from Tian’anmen Square.
_”_Beijing went for Bordeaux because Bordeaux is the reference” (Jean-Marc Menant, general manager of the project)
With an area of 18,000 square meters, the Universal Wine Museum will be five times larger than the institution on the banks of the Garonne. “In China, French wine has the greatest reputation and Bordeaux is a key place in the hearts of Chinese people”, explains Jean-Marc Menant, General Manager France of Zhong Pu Hui Wine, the Chinese company behind the project.
“It was natural and obvious that the Cité du Vin, which is one of the most beautiful wine museums in the world, should be the reference to which we turned.”
The village of Saint-Emilion as an architectural model
The French architects were inspired by the medieval village of Saint-Emilion with its Tour du Roy and its cloister. “The architectural choice was to take inspiration from the village rising towards the sky. So, we reworked around this iconic shape of the village with the recovery of cut stones, with the recovery of all these roofs that cross each other, and with a symbolic tower which could be a bell tower but which does not is not one”adds Jean-Marc Leading.
“This place will not be a replica of the Cité du Vin de Bordeaux but will rely on its know-how by adapting to the expectations of Chinese consumers”