We know the existence of the wineries from the Middle Ages, linked to the monasteries, which were the great centers of feudal life. With the development of markets, there was a boom in the cultivation of the grape and wine production, which led to the construction of places that could make the wine process.
These first buildings carved into the land have given way to glass and metal current favored by researching new techniques for winemaking.
Text: Vanessa Montesinos
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From the XV and XVI know the existence of cellars dug in the ground or in a rock slope, these are places that meet the conditions of temperature and humidity for wine making. Inside, we find the following rooms: the lake or vats, where it is deposited grapes for fermentation, the press, originally of wood and then iron, and at the bottom dug into the rock, we find the draft , which is where the vats of wood or cement tanks that will hold the wine, they are placed next to the barrels, bottles and other gear to spend the wine from one container to another. On the outside, reveals the presence of a warehouse kind of chimneys that used to come out toxic gases or tufts, caused by fermentation: the tuferas.
Since the late twentieth century, the wineries have abandoned their strict functional, to be the showcase of winemaking and wine in them is made. It has gone from warehouse type buildings or large house, the most sophisticated, mixing materials and streamlines the building with its avant-garde lines. Architects like Calatrava Moneo, the Spanish area, and international as Norman Foster and Gehry, have given new life to Spanish wineries, combining modern designs in their buildings and the latest technology when developing the wines; for example, Protos has a department ID i infrared analyzing the quality of the grapes when they arrive at the winery.
The design applied to the wineries we see for the first time in the 90's, when Frenchman Philippe Mazieres, raised in the valley of the Duero to the winery Hacienda del Monasterio, a building with large windows, which let you see the realization of the wine.
Will be in La Rioja where more modern buildings have been erected between the vineyards. Let us begin with the City of Wine, built by Frank Gehry in Elciego, thirty miles from Logroño to the Marques de Riscal winery. The architect of the Bilbao Guggenheim, has recreated a complex which includes: the hold, a museum, a restaurant and an exclusive hotel. Its construction has been used stone blocks topped with sheets of aluminum and titanium, tinted with the colors of wine.
Santiago Calatrava, in Laguardia, designed the building of the winery Ysios, in which we see as aluminum roof mimics, with its undulations, the rows that are stacked wine barrels, contrasting with laminated wood beams and walls the windows that let you view the landscape from the inside.
Mazieres work too, is the winery Pagos de Viña Real in this building in 2004, combines the functionality to the forefront, visible both in the mix of materials: concrete, wood and steel, as in the form of large tub driven into the ground. To say that this winery is the first whose facilities have been adapted to the blind.
Basque architect Iñaki Azpiazu must highlight the work done in the winery Baigorri, also in La Rioja, built at ground level, are accessed through a glass hall, the only component of it that stands out from the vineyards, and descends several levels deep, up to the winery itself.
In Navarra, Moneo designed to Chivite a French chateau with a U-shaped houses the old buildings: the Palace Armoury Cape, with its medieval tower (XIV), the neoclassical and the manor chapel, the vineyards and forests around them. Being the sober work of those presented here.
But Protos winery brings together the functionality with art. The architect Richard Rogers and his studio have made a modern reinterpretation of traditional architecture. The new building is connected to the cellars dug into the hillside where stands the castle, through a tunnel. We are in a building consisting of five arches supported by arches of laminated wood of large size, which are lined with clay. All the spaces are interconnected and glass structure allows us to see inside.
Gone are the small family wineries made of stone. Now, art and wine together in these "cathedrals of wine", which have become the teaching of Spanish wines. Its buildings are adapted to rural areas, where they rise. The use of new materials such as glass and metals , alternating with the stone and wood, make them both functional buildings and exhibition centers that promote wine tourism, in which the brightness contrast of the dark cellar of the areas where the wine ages, and new alternate technologies with traditional customs.