Bordeaux all-set to celebrate wine and improve awareness of its grape and winegrowers

t a press conference ushering in ‘Bordeaux Fête le Vin’ – which starts on June 22 – Bordeaux wine council chairman Allan Sichel stressed the challenging times the region’s wine industry was facing and how uprooting 10,000 hectares to improve the health of its economy is a traumatic event for winegrowers. This is the backdrop against which, “we must encourage wine consumers to want to meet grape and winegrowers. We must create the wow factor for them and introduce them to the different styles of Bordeaux wine”, was the message he hammered home.

So for the first time, alongside the appellation pavilions, grape and winegrowers will take part to provide information on the wines.

This year’s festival has a budget of 2 million euros – one third public support, one third private funding and one third from the sale of admission passes – and will take place along the Bordeaux quayside. It aims to be a full-fledged gourmet trail, a kilometre in length. With 80 Bordeaux and New Aquitaine appellations attending, the event is a complete village of appellations waiting to be discovered.

Trading companies, towards which criticism is often levelled by struggling winegrowers, will also have their own pavilion where packaging and product innovations such as single varietal wines and wine-based cocktails will be presented.

The festival offers a whole variety of experiences from tasting with the Bordeaux Wine School to concerts and even a drone show, one of the new features this year. Bordeaux Fête le Vin will also spill out into the city and the department, with some sixty restaurants showcasing wines and making a pledge to list at least 50% of wines from Bordeaux and the surrounding region. Seventy wine merchants will also be taking part with the CIVB providing them with point-of-sale materials.