Christina L.
Yelp
If you're in Bordeaux for the weekend, there aren't a ton of museums here, and you can probably squeeze in a trip to the Cite du Vin for a few hours. It's not located too far from the center of the city (about a 10-15 min drive, or a 25-30 min walk). If you're a wine connoisseur or have been on a few wine tours where they explain how wine is made, then a lot of the information in the museum will not be new to you. We spent about 2.5-3 hours in here, but you can probably do it in 2 hours if you don't watch all the videos, or spend 3-4 hours here if you watch everything.
The museum is brand-spanking new, with top-of-the-line technology, but it seems most the exhibits are watching videos, so you're essentially paying money to wait your turn to press a few buttons and watch videos. It can get crowded during peak times and it's a little annoying to have to stand and wait for someone to finish watching a 2-3 min video, when you basically have a smartphone around your neck as the audioguide that could show you the same video.
There are a few main sections in the museum:
- One section with winemakers from around the world talking about their wineries, etc. but after a while it starts to get a little repetitive.
- Another section where you smell different aromas/odors to explain the "notes" in the wine.
- Another section that explains the different grapes on the vine and the science behind how the vines/grapes grow.
- 3 sections that show you how the wine is pressed, stored and aged in oak barrels, and how it's bottled in glass.
- Another section that explains the difference between red, white and rose wines (if you drink wine this is not newsbreaking), but some of them pump smells in the air as you're listening/watching, which is pretty cool.
- There was one section I liked where you could pretend you were sitting at a dinner table and a projection of a figure explained how they picked wines for different meals - I didn't like it as much for the content, but more for the technology and creativity.
Your 20€ admission also gets you a small pour of wine at the top (you can pick from 15 wines or so) and you can see all of Bordeaux (to be honest the view is not so spectacular).
Overall, I didn't really learn a whole lot from the wine museum as I would have hoped to. You're better off going to a winery in St. Emilion and seeing the process in real life and tasting more wines. If you have kids, they have a few iPad videos that are catered for the children, but not a ton. If you have time in Bordeaux to kill for the weekend, this place is fine, but I wouldn't go out of my way to come here and I don't think I'd come here a second time - once was enough for me.