Bordeaux unveils Cité des Civilisations du Vin

The planned wine cultural centre for downtown Bordeaux has finally unveiled its name, three years after the project was first announced.

The chosen name for the €60m centre, due to open in 2015, is Cité des Civilisations du Vin.

‘We consulted naming agencies Nomen and 4uatre in Paris, but also took into consideration the opinion of the five public entities that are funding the project,’ director Philippe Massol told Decanter.com.

Those entities are the Bordeaux Wine Bureau, the City of Bordeaux, the Communauté Urbain de Bordeaux, the EU and the Aquitaine Region.

‘We fully expect the name to be appropriated by the visitors, and to be shortened in much the same way that the Museum of Modern Art in New York became MOMA several years after its opening.

We understand that language evolves, but felt that this name best sums up what the centre stands for, and reflects Bordeaux’s position as a global wine city.’

Workers have already begun clearing a site for the centre, overlooking the Garonne river, and the first brick is due to be laid on Wednesday April 10, 2013, during the en primeur week.

The centre will aim to attract 400,000 visitors per year. Private sponsors include local Bordeaux chateaux Domaine Clarence Dillon, Vignobles Bernard Magrez, Domaine de Chevalier, Millésima and Lucien Bernard & Cie.