Carl Fredrik Svenstedt Architecte has built a winery that features curving stone solid walls and guides visitors for a winemaking process inside, while offering a guest house linked to the winery.

Named Delas Frères Winery, the building is located in the heart of a village, at the foot of the famous Tain l’Hermitage slopes and their winding terraces, planted with wines in France.

The 5,000-square-metre building was built by using solid, structural stones in which its stone blocks were individually carved by robot. The new wine cellar and shop become walls framing a renovated manor house and its garden. 

"Delas Frères was determined to renovate a historic, centrally located property, investing in their past, despite the challenges of wine harvesting in an urban context," said Carl Fredrik Svenstedt Architecte. 

"The stone relates to the site, while the thermally inert, porous walls create ideal conditions for wine."

The architects used ramps within the winery to allow visitors to discover the wine process within an efficient interior and lead to views of the hills from a roof terrace, and down to the bottle cellar under the manor house. 

Sunlight enters the visitors’ gallery through a continuous skylight, the undulating wall serving as a light reflector for the tank and barrel halls, where direct light would be detrimental.

The shop forms the opposing garden wall, a linear space behind shading, staggered stone pillars. An existing chestnut tree traces a bite out of the wall, under which one finds the shaded, glazed entrance of the shop. 

The existing mansion affirms itself as the central element of the garden and is renovated as a guest house, linked to the winery. It has a restaurant and tasting rooms, bedrooms overlooking the garden and a cellar for the historic bottle collection.

"This winery is built to be touched. The structural façades are made of load bearing, 50-cm thick Estaillade stone from down the river," added the firm. 

"The tender, relatively light sandstone is ideally adapted to massive stone construction, being workable and best in thick structural blocks." 

The main, undulating wall is 80 metres long and 7 metres high, with a geometrically stable, structural form. The wall is made from blocks individually carved by robot, which are post-tensioned to the foundations and bonded horizontally using stainless steel cables. 

Intelligent machining reduces waste, while the resulting gravel is reused to pave the garden. Despite the unique technicity of the wall, the blocks are mounted traditionally by a two-man father and son team of stonemasons. 

Image © Sergio Grazia 

Image © Sergio Grazia 

Image © Sergio Grazia 

Image © Carl Fredrik Svenstedt

Site plan

Ground floor plan 0

Basement floor plan 

Floor plan 1

Section

Sketch

Detailed section

Project facts

Project name: Delas Frères Winery

Architects: Carl Fredrik Svenstedt Architecte

Location: Tain l’Hermitage, France 

Size: 5000m2

Date: 2019 

All images © Dan Glasser unless otherwise stated.

All drawings © Carl Fredrik Svenstedt Architecte

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