Monte d'Oiro Wine Tasting Room

Monte d'Oiro Wine Tasting Room — Monte d'Oiro, PT

‘The taste of the apple.. Lies in the contact of the fruit with the palate, not in the fruit itself; in a similar way... poetry lies in the meeting of the poem and reader, not in the lines of symbols printed on the pages of a book. What is essential is the aesthetic act, the thrill, the almost physical emotion that comes with each reading.’

— Jorge Luis Borg

Architecture is typically the response to how we relate to living in nature through fundamentally being confronted by the question of human existence in space and time. It is the built expression of our attempt to answer the metaphysical questions of the self and the world, interiority and exteriority, time and duration, life and death.

Our aim is to put forward an architectural proposal that treasures the core values around wine and generates a space that celebrates them. The design explores concepts of both simplicity and complexity. The proposal does not simply refer to the physical construction but instead aspires to create social interactions and to embody the lifecycle of the wine itself. From planting to ageing, winemaking requires knowledge, commitment and time and concerns a continuously living process, rather than simply a product.

The design of Monte d’Orio Wine Tasting Room centers on the construction of spatial representations of the flow of human experiences through appropriating natural materials such as stone and wood. Materials which have an effortless way of expressing their age and history alongside the story of their human use. The enriching experience of the natural materials of the construction that has been selected allows the user’s to penetrate the surfaces and provides a sensory experiences rather than the dominance of vision.

We believe in aging as a form of beauty. Our focus was on generating a space that employs the juxtaposition between natural material like stone and wood with machine made materials like glass and metal to create a sensation of duality between the sense of belonging and weightlessness. This interplay of materials also allows the architecture to be representative of Portugal’s rich built environment of traditional and contemporary design to give visitors to the wine tasting room and experience of space, place and meaning.

Monte d’Orio Wine Tasting Room has been designed as an experience that correlates with the existing strata. The experiential journey begins on a connection bridge from the existing winery level that leads the user to a wildflower green roof terrace with panoramic views of the vineyard. The second stage of the experience is the wine tasting room. The wine tasting room is wrapped by a fully glazed wall that connects to a cantilevered external natural stone paved terrace that blurs the lines between interiority and exteriority. The use of fully glazed cladding allows a seamless flow between the manmade intervention and the existing environment in which it inhabits. It provides the users with the option of experiencing the landscape during all the different seasons. It not only domesticates the limitless space that surrounds it but it enables the users to inhabit the continuum of time creating a sense of place.

Circulation is the third stage of the experience. An external staircase that connects the roof terrace to the wine tasting room to the vineyard allows visitors to experience the different levels of the strata and landscape. Finally this is all tied together with the fourth stage of the experience which is a natural stone clad bell tower with an integrated elevator. The elevator allows visitors with different abilities to experience each stage of the wine tasting room. The bell tower adds the final touch of the sensory experience that sounds out to the works and the beginning and the end of each shift and most importantly operates as a landmark.