La Cité du Vin, the most spectacular wine city in the world, which includes our wines, opened its doors in early June of 2016 in Bordeaux.
La Cité du Vin has started attracting thousands of visitors from day one and received some rave reviews: the strict London Telegraph called this 63-million-pound investment “the best wine centre in the world”. This wine centre includes Tonković Wines, too, along with just a few wineries from this region. We are proud that our wines are being successfully sold among a total of 800 world labels on offer in Latitude 20, the global vinotheque of the Bordeaux Wine City. Bottles of Tonković Wines have taken their place on the wine chart of the prestigious Le 7 restaurant, which offers a phenomenal view of Bordeaux. We are extremely pleased that we have been able to launch our kadarka in France, in Bordeaux – the capital of all red wines. Besides Bordeaux, Tonković kadarka is sold in a number of Parisian restaurants and bars, in Serbia and Croatia, as well as Belgium and Switzerland.
La Cité du Vin is a place built by the French Foundation for Culture and Wine Promotion in order to enable the visitors, professional public and all wine lovers to get to know all the world’s wines in one place. They say that it is neither a museum nor a big wine shop, but “a Cathedral of Wine dedicated to the noble beverage that is mentioned some 400 times in the Bible…”
The founders of the Wine City are the City of Bordeaux, Crédit Agricole d’Aquitane and Conseil Interprofessionel du Vin de Bordeaux, and it was designed by the architects Anouk Legendre and Nicolas Desmazières. The goal is to attract as attract as many as possible wine lovers to the Bordeaux region – as well as those are yet to become wine lovers.
The Wine City cost 81 million euros to build. The City of Bordeaux participated with 38%, the French state with 2%, the Gironde Department with 1%, CIVB and the Aquitaine Region with 7% each, and a large part was financed by 82 big companies, as well as private individuals. According to plans, this Wine City, which enabled the creation of 750 new jobs, should bring in at least 40 million euros a year. The Cité du Vin should put new and strong wind in the sails of the regional wine tourism.