The most delicate blend of taste and architecture springs an exotic winery slashed along an enticing serenading landscape. Cantina Del Bruciato presents an artistic elevation of steeping angular silhouette scoring in contrast to the blue skies. The architecture studio, asv3 Officina di Architettura, nurtured their creative concepts from ancient rural settlements integrated with specific environmental and technical construction parameters of today.
“….. Nearby there will be the wine cellar with windows to the north; if it had them somewhere else, where it could be heated by the sun, the wine of that cellar, undone by the heat, would lose its strength….” – Vitruvius, Book VI of De Architettura
The Cantina Del Bruciato locates within vast vineyards in Bolgheri, one of the sunny locations for wine production in Italy. It has become the new company centre for the Tenuta di Guado al Tasso owned by the Antinori family. The peculiarity of the site starts, just one kilometre from the sea, bumbling a flat topography to a proficient induce within the landscape. The design of dunes rich in Mediterranean vegetation mitigates the striking visual impact along with bumps and gibbous trends.
The cellar exposition incorporates industrial themes of seriality, thought of as a modular shed along the longitudinal axis with a 5 m pitch. The façade heralds a strong articulation through a faceted coating, “armour” in perforated metal made of dark titanium zinc. In addition, it serves as a thermal and lighting filter pursuing a continuous dialogue with the landscape. The winemaking cellar adheres to different levels of analysis and study. From the site to genius loci to integrating agriculture and built form, production functionality, and is the fundamental barycentre to investment. In addition, the use of the best technologies for reducing consumption combined with the help of energy resources from renewable sources.
Discovering the Winery
The space once dedicated to the breeding of racehorses consists of an existing shed, a series of paddocks, a small house for the caretaker and cabin, and outdoor spaces without buildings intended for breeding and gallop training. The project undertook extraordinary maintenance of the existing warehouse housing the new company centre and the demolition of other artefacts. On the other side of the tree-lined avenue is the new cellar. The construction intervened with a distribution system uniquely dictated by the production cycle.
The production layout arranges on a single level, effectively saving time with improved technology. The plant comprises three zones: the grape delivery area, the vinification space, stainless steel tank storages and the final arena for the barrel, bottling and glass ageing. The delivery area consists of a covered expanse perfectly integrated into the winery at a higher altitude from the floor of the project forecourt. A travel ramp, vast and spacious manoeuvres in safety and tranquillity, transferring the grapes for the first pressing and ramming operations.
The vinification, allocated by types of wine, distributes around the open and covered spaces of the press area. Two stairs on the sides lead to the rooms dedicated to the cellar staff on the first floor. On the second floor, local laboratory analysis and technical tasting serve the space by the same stairs that serve the changing rooms and toilets—moreover connected by walkways to the storage tanks placed behind them. Most of the wine requires wooden elevation for 10/12 months, and this time will pass it in the large barricade and, for special situations, in a small barrier for malolactic fermentation.
The area dedicated to the barricade and glass ageing divides into two regions with different internal temperatures. The operating temperature of the barrier placed at 14° with a humidity of eighty-five per cent curates the most delicate blend. To this objective, the building has been designed as a passive organism that does not spread heat. The physical characteristics of the materials analyzed through intricate attention to the orientation. Glass bottling, storage rooms and barricades act as a buffer against the cold winds from the north in the winter period. It is evident that these environments, with the few openings and the massive insulation in the roof and the perimeter walls with the elimination of thermal bridges, manage to achieve the objectives requested by the Commission following the lowest possible consumption of energy resources.
The dichotomy between the crisp geometry of the cellar and the fluid shape of the grassy hills follow parametrically over the entire building. Cantina Del Bruciato delimits the area of relevance and functional access to the basement with the construction of joints identifying necessary appliances. The winery stands soaring in a colossal magnitude, embellished in its glory.
Client: Antinori Agricola srl
Project and Artistic Direction: asv3 – architecture workshop, Cesena Arch. Fiorenzo Valbonesi
Photography: Fiorenzo Valbonesi (asv3-workshop of architecture); Cornelia Suhan; Pietro Savorelli
News Via: www.asv3.com
