▻ Champagne’s new wine museum

Let's Talk About

21 Apr

Written By Sarah Kemp

▴ Pressoria (photo Phileas) — *▴ Pressoria (photo Phileas)*

In conversation with Gary Shelley from Casson Mann

Episode Summary:-

How do you make a wine museum interesting? Jane Anson talks to Gary Shelley from Casson Mann, the man behind the designs at the Cité du Vin in Bordeaux and Pressoria, the new “Centre for Sensory Interpretation of Champagne,” which is shortly to be opened in the village of Ay in the former Pommery pressoir. Gary discusses the challenges of bringing wine to life, and how he avoided the pitfalls of the many wine museums which have failed. He reveals some of the new attractions at Pressoria, including the Root room where digital roots follow you round as if you are a nodule of goodness.

““It’s not about Champagne marketing, or the rich person’s drink, it’s about the place and the people who make it.” ”

— Gary Shelley

Running Order:-

0.00 – 7.40

“Wine museums are notoriously difficult to make interesting to a wider audience.”

Gary Shelley talks to Jane Anson about the challenges in creating a successful wine museum. Wine museums are notoriously difficult to make interesting to a wider audience, he notes, and there have been many failures. Gary explains how wine museums have often failed because “you are taking the authentic and making it inauthentic... Too often the quality of the exhibit isn’t exuding the quality of the wine.”

At Cité du Vin, he used digital film to recreate the feeling of a vineyard and sound designers created birdsong to bring the vineyard to life.
7.41 – 14.18

“Digital roots come and find you as if you are a nodule of goodness.”

The second wine project Gary has worked on is Pressoria, which was commissioned by the mayor of Ay in Champagne. The centre is based in an old pressoir on the edge of the vineyards, and Gary talks to Jane about how they have adapted it to provide an immersive experience for visitors. He explains it is about the terroir, and the people who make it, not champagne marketing. There is a root room, cut out of a block in the soil where visitors will experience digital roots above them, and find out what is good for the soil and what is bad. To make it more interactive, the roots come and find you as if you are a nodule of goodness.
6.02 – 9.24

“Wine and stories and talking really go quite well together.”

Jane asks Gary whether the wine industry can learn from the success of chefs on TV and how they connect directly to consumers. It’s storytelling, he explains--people like stories about people rather than just technique and craft.

His current projects are the new Holocaust galleries at The Imperial War Museum and Blackpool’s first museum, which will be devoted to popular culture. Different challenges from wine!