Wine makes every meal an occasion; every table more elegant; every day more civilized.
During my days in Bordeaux, where I learnt, experienced and love the most was a wine museum, La Cité du Vin; which spent 3 years on construction works and just finished on June 2016. I was so thankful that I discover this museum on the map our hotel gave me; otherwise, my vacation wouldn’t be completed and fulfilled enough.
For my first thought, I thought a 20€ ticket was just too expensive for a foreign student; however, after I finished my tour and discover every detail in the museum, 20€ was way too cheap for what I gained in La Cité du Vin.
The whole design of La Cité du Vin was modern architecture, to correspond the smoothness of wine; the museum was designed with tons of circular arcs and lines. And of course, what’s a wine museum without selling those fine wines around the world? Located on the same floor with ticket counter and boutique, there was an orbicular dark room surrounded by dozens of kind of wines. To be honest it reminded me of The Matrix, what a movie geek I am.
The first thing came into my eyes on the 1st floor was a small but bright study, it would be so wonderful if spend all day reading through all the books about wine. The best part of the tiny studies was that there weren’t only books in French, but also in English; weren’t only acknowledge about France, but also contained Asia, Africa, the USA all over the world.
Next to the studies, there was a temporary exhibition until 8th January, 2017; it was an exhibition of Isabelle Rozenbaum, a photographer who used her camera to record the progress of the construction work of La Cité du Vin. I’ve always felt so amazing to see architecture be finished step by step and owed by those construction workers who need to stay in dangers under any kind of weather.
The main role of La Cité du Vin was the permanent exhibition on the 2nd floor. It was a huge interactive exhibition room, different from the traditional museum tour guide and the mp3 touring player, La Cité du Vin connects their exhibition with their visitors so well. The museum uses lots of audios and animations to explain us different kinds of grapes from every corner of the world, sometimes, there will also be some small interactive games to show us how grape farmers take care of their grapes, the history of some famous grape families…… Also, the best part of La Cité du Vin made their entire exhibition into 3Ds, made our visual experience even more vivid. I paid so many attentions into every detail in this showroom, learning from history, geography, poem to technology.
My favourite part of La Cité du Vin was on the 3rd floor, different from the 2nd floor teaching us some professional acknowledge, here, we can experience more about the fragrance, smoothness, colour, complexity, texture and the expression of wine by interacting with some little game designs and some short operas. Although I love to drink, however, I could only distinguish whether this bottle of wine was smooth enough, too sour, bitter, sweet, light or strong. Being in this floor, I could finally know that to professionally express the feeling of different types of wine, there could be thousands of way like if it tastes silky, rounded that pleases you, or it’s too sharp? Is this bottle of wine structural enough? The complexity, is it balanced? Or it brings you different notes and makes you have long-aftertaste?
Finally, finishing my 4-hour-experience in the exhibition room, my last stop was the viewing deck on the 7th floor. Here, La Cité du Vin offered every visitor a glass of famous fine wine all over the world according to our ticket; since I’m in Bordeaux, of course, I chose the speciality here- Chateau d’Haurets Bordeaux Pink. Using what I learnt just now, to me, the overall fragrance of the bottle of wine was fresh, light and a little bit fruity; the smoothness was rounded and silky, also, it had a gentle sharpness; underneath the sunshine, this glass of wine in my hand shimmered like a piece of rose gold crystal.
