City lights

01 January 2000
City lights

Park Street, Bankside, London SE1

Tel: 020 7645 3700

Web site: www.evinopolis.com

Open: daily from 10am to 5.30pm

Admission price: £10

After one of the lengthiest campaigns of pre-publicity in recent media history, Vinopolis, City of Wine, finally opened to the public in London's Bankside on 23 July.

Journalists who had been at the first press preview the week before might have been forgiven for wondering whether it was going to happen on time. Workmen in fluorescent jackets were still shinning up and down stepladders, and one or two of the film sequences being shown looked ominously jerky, but there was a distinct buzz of anticipation in the air, and the tasting stewards were certainly up to snuff and ready to pour.

Vinopolis aims to be much more than a tourist attraction. It sees itself as becoming some sort of nerve centre for the wine industry in the capital, with educational courses being run here for those of all abilities, including consumers, sommeliers and those making their way in the trade.

The Wine and Spirit Education Trust - which may eventually hold its exams here - and the Institute of Masters of Wine have provided advisers and consultants to help in setting up the courses.

The building is a complex of restaurants, a wine bar, an art gallery - due to open in September with an exhibition of outsize works by Swiss painter Franz Gertsch - and as much shopping in the way of speciality foods, books, wine paraphernalia and, of course, the odd bottle as visitors feel able to handle.

At the heart of it all, and the principal draw for the non-specialist public, is the Wine Odyssey - a sequence of 21 interconnecting rooms culminating in the grand Tasting Halls. Vinopolis should not be conceived as anything so fusty as an exhibition or museum, I was told by Sophia Gilliatt, associate director for wine and food development. It is more an interactive wine experience that seeks, by means of a personal audio link, touch-screen computer terminals and sensory gadgets, to stimulate and develop wine education for the consumer.

Its conceptual origins were much more humble, as deputy chairman Tony Hodges explains: "The idea began as the Museum of Wine back in 1987, as a proposal for capitalising on the rapidly growing interest in wine that there was in Britain. But the key date was early 1996, which is when it really came into being as the brand you see now."

It was in that year that the first serious capital investment started flowing in. Installing the displays and fitting out the venue has occupied the past nine months.

The lion's share of the funding - about two-thirds - has come from private investors, including, Hodges is proud to note, most of the staff. The final figure stands at £23m.

Leased equipment and borrowings account for just over 20%, while English Partnerships, the Government's urban regeneration agency, stumped up £2m to assist in transforming what is gradually becoming a thriving little corner of SE1. Now, alongside Vinopolis in the shadow of Southwark Cathedral, are Borough Market, up-to-the-minute food retailing and catering operations and the Clink Prison Museum.

One source that was not approached for funds was the wine trade itself, to avoid obvious conflicts of interest. Majestic may manage the 8,000sq ft of retail space that includes the wine store, but it has been given the punctiliously unwieldy title, Vinopolis Vaults with Majestic, to make the point that this is not simply another branch of the wholesale chain.

So what can visitors expect for their entrance fee of £10? The experience begins in the entrance room, where visitors are encouraged to loiter while a voice on the headset explains how the audio kit works. An introductory commentary is triggered as they enter each room, after which it's up to the individual to key in the numerical code attached to each exhibit or video that arouses interest.

These commentaries, intoned by such luminaries as Hugh Johnson and Oz Clarke, are of differing degrees of information. Each lasts up to a minute, except the video soundtracks, which may be about four minutes. Some, such as Johnson's vine-to-bottle summation of the port process, are modest masterpieces of concision.

The first room, Metamorphosis, contains a curving diorama of a film screen on which a year in the life of a vineyard is traced, largely via still shots interspersed with moving sequences with a soft-focus feel.

In Sensibilia - getting nearer the Tasting Halls - visitors are tempted into an olfactory exercise. Metal stalks looking like old-fashioned microphones release smells at the squeeze of a lever. Some aim to encourage varietal recognition (honey, butter and peach for Chardonnay; mint, blackcurrant and vanilla for Cabernet Sauvignon), while others focus on wine faults. The sulphur nozzle released a belch of SO2 that had me reeling, while the cork-taint nozzle was bemusingly redolent of patchouli.

What I suspect will have visitors captivated are the touch-screen terminals that crop up in most rooms. The programme is sourced to a large extent from Oz Clarke's Webster CD-Rom put out a few years ago. Its main menu comprises All About Wine, Wine Encyclopedia, World Atlas of Wine, Matching Food and Wine, and Wine Selector, and then there is an in-depth file on whatever region the room is devoted to.

Wine Selector allows visitors to specify the parameters of country, grape(s), style, quality and food match in the search for a wine. Testing it to destruction, I asked it to find a dry rosé to drink with consommé, for which, not surprisingly, it failed to make a recommendation. But when I sought to compound my malevolence by demanding a Chenin Blanc to partner an omelette, it displayed 23 suggestions (although some only contained a proportion of the grape).

In the Tasting Halls, tables are set out with half-a-dozen or so wines, staffed by youthful tasting guides of various nationalities. These are apprentices in the wine and catering trades, and they seemed pretty clued-up during my visit. Each new bottle is tasted for faults upon opening, and there is a tasting card for each wine. Prices are not divulged, for fear, presumably, that everybody will rush for the premium cuvées.

Your £10 buys five tastes, which may feel a little parsimonious given there are more than 200 bottles open, although for a further £2.50 a second book of five vouchers may be bought. Then, that's your lot.

There are spittoons on hand, but most of the public will very likely swallow. At the moment, the tables are geographically organised, but it is expected that eventually there will be varietally themed tables, and individual wineries also will be featured. (On my visit, Chile's Err zuriz sat in splendid isolation.)

The wines have all been selected by an expansive Wine Advisory Board that includes, among others, Steven Spurrier, Michael Broadbent, Michel Roux and Lord Asa Briggs, the social historian who once wrote a history of the Victoria Wine Company.

Vinopolis is expected to attract about 500,000 visitors a year for the first three years, but there is a 40% shortfall factored into the financial projections.

More seating areas, I feel, would encourage the return visits the executives are confidently expecting, and much better pedestrian signposting from London Bridge station will ensure people get there at all. Over to Southwark council.

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