Bordeaux Cité des Civilisations du Vin rebrands

Bordeaux’s wine cultural centre and museum, due to open in the spring of 2016, is to rebrand both its name and visual identity over the coming months.

The decision has been taken to simplify the original name Cité des Civilisations du Vin and to instead call the attraction the more straightforward Cité du Vin.

Bordeaux mayor Alain Juppé announced the decision this week during the Bordeaux Fête le Vin festival in Quebec.

‘Consumer tests that showed the previous brand name was too long and too difficult to pronounce,’ marketing director Olivier Kollek told decanter.com. ‘We are now reworking the entire visual identity, with a new logo and branding that will be revealed in mid-October’.

In December, it was reported that the project was over budget by 14million euros.

Building works are progressing on schedule, with 2,500 reflective aluminium panels currently being placed over the façade of the building’s 55-metre high tower – in an effect designed to mirror the glinting of wine in a glass.

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The Cité du Vin is expected to receive between 350,000 and 500,000 visitors per year once it opens in March 2016.

‘We receive 6 million tourists each year to Bordeaux,’ Juppé said, ‘and it is not over-ambitious to imagine that 5% of them will visit the Cité du Vin’.