Bordeaux Wine museum

For all that Bordeaux is synonymous with fine wine around the world, the city has not had a decent wine museum in recent years. To some extent you could argue that with so many great vineyards in the area who needs a wine museum?? Yet Bordeaux can be a little difficult to come to terms with, and some of the best vineyard cellars can feel a little intimidating.
Whilst the ultimate key to Bordeaux is the quality of its wines, the wines would not have been a success without the history and geography of the city and its rivers, nor without the entrepreneurial structures of the wine trade and the relationships with countries such as England and the Netherlands.
So it has to be good news that a new Musee des Negociants will be opening in the Spring of 2008 in the historic Chartrons area of Bordeaux, along the banks of the Garonne river, where barrels of wine were loaded onto sailing ships in earlier times.

The museum is being developed by a young wine merchant (negociant) under the banner of Bordeaux Historia Vini. Negociants were (and to some extent still are) a key feature of the Bordeaux wine trade, buying from, or acting on behalf of the vineyard and selling on to merchants at home and abroad. In some cases they would blend wines to produce a consistent blend which would be widely marketed. This undoubtedly helped the Bordeaux wine trade to consolidate its predominant position in the wine markets of the world.
Musée des Négociants, 41, rue Borie, Bordeaux
For more info on visiting Bordeaux see www.museeduvinbordeaux.com/