ESPRESSO is a high-resolution, highly stable spectrograph for the VLT. It will inherit and enhance most capabilities from HARPS and UVES, combining both stability and efficiency. The main science driver will be the detection and characterization of Earth-like planets, but many additional science cases will benefit from its highly stable spectroscopic observations. The facility will be installed at the combined Coudé focus of the VLT and may be linked with any of the four UT telescopes, enabling thus a great flexibility for the efficient use of telescope time. This particularity makes the interface with the VLT more complex than for an instrument fed by a single telescope. It impacts on the complexity of the relationship between the consortium providing the instrument and ESO, the customer. The targeted high RV accuracy requires very high performances in stability and resolution, which in turn require adequate technical solutions at several levels. This paper describes the instrument system and subsystems, enlightening the most valuable differences between ESPRESSO and it's predecessors, the details of the project, entering now the design phases, the ESPRESSO consortium, composed of Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swiss institutes, and the relationship between the consortium and ESO.