Stéphan Delaux, the deputy at Bordeaux’s city council in charge of tourism, was interviewed at www.20minutes.fr recently about the next venues for the Bordeaux Wine Festival. Delaux apparently ‘wants to creat a mini-wine festival in London’.
The Bordeaux Wine Festival is held every 2 years (alternating with Vinexpo which is held for the trade rather than the public). The festival is spread over 12 acres right in the heart of Bordeaux itself.
Around half a million visitors attend the tastings, exhibitions, performances, vineyard tours and enjoy the sights and sounds of the festival so this is a big event to host, even on a smaller scale. The problem with holding the event in London is the available access to public spaces.
The 2012 Bordeaux Wine Festival paid tribute to Hong Kong and the 2010 Bordeaux Wine Festival honoured its francophone twin city, Quebec. The cities in turn hold their own wine festivals as an offshoot of the Bordeaux Wine
Festival and Hong Kong’s started on 1st November this year.
Delaux was asked if he would continue to spread the festival to other countries and he replied that the Bordeaux Wine Festival could bring their expertise to interested cities and that there are several options.
A city could host a duplicate of the Bordeaux Wine Festival, as did Quebec, host their own festival with Bordeaux being given a special place of honour, as did Hong Kong (Bordeaux represented 30% of the wines at the exhibition and 50 stands), or hold a mini-festival which is what he would like to organize in London.
He will be prospectin
g in London and Brussels and is currently only at the investigation stage. The other possibility is Los Angeles. Los Angeles is set to be the special guest city during the next Bordeaux Wine Festival in 2014 but as yet have not given an official response to the invitation.
Bordeaux is twinned with Los Angles and the two cities will be celebrating 50 years of twinning in 2014.
Previous Bordeaux Wine Festivals have honoured St Petersburg, Fukuoka in Japan and Munich. I do hope the organisers can arrange a festival in London – it’d be great for Bordeaux wine fans over here!
The Bordeaux Wine Festival is well worth a visit and for further information on the festival you can visit www.bordeaux-fete-le-vin.com, or contact the Bordeaux Tourist Office by email or telephone +33 (0)556 00 66 00.