Winery Gantenbein

Gantenbein wines have an excellent reputation world wide. They are produced following the growing and production principle of “Terroir”, which is also found in the organisation of the winery and in its architectural language. The buildings are grouped around a courtyard, situated on the edge of a wine yard, where the vines are being picked. Below are basements rooms and the distribution facilities. The production line follows the principle of gravity, low tech and much experience are the basis for the maturing process of exclusive wines. Only three people: Daniel, Martha and father Gantenbein are running the wine yard, high efficiency is guaranteed by optimised operating sequences. Those are the preconditions of the new building, both functional and representational object at the same time. Typologically, the building resembles horse stables with fascades of perforated brickwork. They have been laid by the robot and have been prefabricated into wall elements. Central issues are room organisation and choice of materials, a controlled, natural room climate and natural ventilation. Every storey has its own operational logic. The brick construction provides thermal mass and is prefabricated, with few exemptions of distinct details. The fermenting cellar is a hall level to the ground. Here, the vine harvest ferments in oak barrels. Underground, a columned cellar joins the existing to the new buildings, carried by eight mushroom shaped columns. Above the winery is the lounge, an open but sheltered roof terrace, which offers views across the Ragaz Rhine valley. The attraction of the facility lies in the contradiction between complexity and quality of the product, and the directness and reduced (nearly archaic) force of its production. The same is true for the architecture, which derives directly from the inner and outer context of the winery.