Cantina Valpolicella Negrar
2014 project: Studio Batoni
Verona, Italia
La Cantina Valpolicella Negrar is a cooperative located a few kilometers from Verona, which since 1933 is dedicated to providing quality wines and full expression of the territory of the Valpolicella Classico, such as Valpolicella, Ripasso, Recioto and Amarone.
The intervention affects mainly the reconstruction of the east wing of the building, the new building of the area currently occupied by the external winemaking and resettlement of outdoor spaces.
The project focused on the deep and entrenched that the building should have with the land and the local tradition through careful choice of materials and colors. The cellar becomes, in fact, the architectural image through which you can learn about and experience the culture of the area and also a “container” where cultural production, training and tasting come together synergistically.
The building is covered with a plaster that echoes the typical red-brown soil of Valpolicella, able to give different characters to wines produced from grapes grown. The main front in the east has well highlighted the different levels through the projection of the floors and it is characterized by a double envelope consisting of Corten steel blades. Openings-cracks between the blades revealed through the continuous glass inside the building.
The real heart of the cellar, where the wine is aged in barrels and barrels, lies hidden in the basement and in the interior of the earth (P-2 and P-3).
On the ground floor of the building are arranged the production area, the new warehouse, offices, laboratory research and cultural center with a double height reception area and the educational-cultural.
On the first floor are located the offices, the production area, the new loft, used as a temporary exhibition space, and the cultural container double height with the permanent exhibition area and lounge.
The cultural center occupies most of the east wing of the building and into it through various routes (education / production, workshops, tastings, shows / conferences and lounge bar) you can discover and experience the cellar in its various temporal dimensions, sensory and functional. The traditional techniques and modern ones of the grape harvest and wine production, the exterior of the vineyards and the inside of the cellar not only are told, but discover and live realistically through guided tours with banner stand, zones projection and tasting, the sensory media library and museum of withering and the cellar. Colors, tastes, smells, sights and sounds: everything blends harmoniously in a single large room. Within this large double height space punctuated by long septa and pillars stand out of walkways that allow the access to the volumes that house the auditorium, library and media library sensory. These volumes apparently suspended leaving the ground floor completely usable seem roll dynamically in this great space in size of both of those wine lovers who wish to approach one of the most fascinating expressions of knowledge and of human ingenuity: the wine.