Superstars in the cellar – An exhibition of architecture and wine labels on the occasion of “Vinum” kermesse

“From the basement of his grandfather to the cathedrals of wine signed by Renzo Piano and Frank Gehry. Can you tell the story of Italian viticulture and winemaking through the evolution of architecture in the cellar? Can you say something about the changes of customs and agricultural landscapes, following a line from “infernot,” dug into the tuff, leading up to Petra, the futuristic structure designed by Mario Botta in Suvereto, Tuscany?
Once upon, the hills of the wine, there were mostly row houses like those that draw children, and “L-shaped” farms with the arcades of the barn, the facades of stone and plaster, some porch and no decorum. Luigi Einaudi called them “farms of the details”: scattered houses, shrouded in mist in fall and lit by the sun in summer, where the work was hard and full of commitment, up and down the fields and vineyards.
In Langa, as in many other wine areas of Italy, has been so for centuries until the postwar period. Then, with wine, they got the money and the first changes. (…) Finally, with wealth, many farmers have become entrepreneurs and have begun to entrust their cellars in the hands of architects. And they designed the work to make it more functional, hospitality more welcoming, or just to impress.
A witness of this evolution is the exhibition «Architecture of wine», which will be opened today in Alba (Church of San Domenico), giving way to «Vinum», a big event dedicated to wine lovers.
(…) A broad overview of examples, very different in space, type, location, formal solutions: from small traditional wine cellar to the large and most industrialized production logic, from the cellar to the modern historical thought of as contemporary architectural sign, from formal restyling of existing buildings, the juxtaposition and dialogue between «old» and «new».
Here is the Cube tilted and transparent, with which the Ceretto brothers have marked the territory of Castiglione Falletto, and the grass on the roof, with whom Cascina Adelaide (ARCHICURA) and Cantina Ratti were camouflaged in Barolo and La Morra. The exhibition tells how the ancient Pio Cesare, in the historic center of Alba, was able to grow between the barrels preserving pieces of Roman and medieval walls and how, instead, in Spain, the Marques de Riscal gave its wine citadel in the hands of  the visionary archistar Frank Gehry. But even as a bad shed along the way could have become a welcoming and low-impact space through the use of decorative materials and trees”.

(excerpt from La Stampa, April 16th 2010, Roberto Fiori, Alba)

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This post was written by archicura