Le Cassissium

What you will see

The visit starts in the museum, where touch screens, scents and a film explain where blackcurrants grow and how people have used them through the ages. A guide then leads you into the Védrenne workshops to see the vats and a cellar where spirits age. You finish in the tasting room with crème de cassis, other fruit creams, liqueurs and syrups, including drinks without alcohol for children and drivers.

History

The Védrenne liqueur house has made fruit creams and liqueurs in Nuits-Saint-Georges since 1923. The blackcurrant is a symbol of Burgundy, and crème de cassis is the form most people know. In 2001 Védrenne opened the Cassissium on its own site, as a museum entirely devoted to the fruit. The exhibition was fully redesigned in 2013. It sits beside the working liqueur house, so the story told in the museum continues in the vats next door.

Production here is simple and slow. The berries are crushed, then left to macerate in alcohol for six to eight weeks in rotating stainless steel vats, before pressing and filtering. Around 600 tonnes of fruit arrive each year. The museum also looks beyond the bottle, at the plant's long history in medicine, perfumery and cooking. Burgundy's own variety, the Noir de Bourgogne, is prized for its aroma.