Wine tourism has popularized visits to wine cellars. These visits usually include a walk through the vineyards and another through the cellars (in variable magazine status), enlivened with explanations about the production methods, which may seem lengthy, because the visitor is more interested in the final tasting than in the secrets. from, say, malolactic fermentation.
This popularization has encouraged some winemakers to hire renowned architects, who often design eye-catching buildings, with the aim of becoming the emblem of the brand. Celler Peralada began this path in 2003, when it contacted RCR. After almost twenty years, having overcome the stoppages caused by the crisis and, also, due to a high degree of demand, both business and architectural, the new winery has just been presented to society.
Located next to the castle of Peralada, on the grounds of La Granja (designed by Adolf Florensa in 1941), with views of the Llobregat, the Empordà landscape and the Pyrenees, this building is, despite its 18,000 square meters of construction, a discreet volume, with more vocation of balcony to the natural environment and of integration in it than of architectural gesture: its roof-facade has something of a gentle hill, under which the wine is made, in diaphanous spaces with spans of up to thirty meters.
The promoters of this winery say that their goal, in addition to seeking product excellence and sustainability, is to turn the visitor into a lover of the brand. And it must be said that it succeeds, thanks to a tour with a unique atmosphere, which begins with an underground and labyrinthine walk, through successive shadowy chambers reminiscent of those of an Egyptian pyramid, where audiovisuals of the best vineyards of the brand are presented. : an immersion in the Empordà landscape, its seasons, its sea and its winds. Also in their lands, present at the bottom of each screen.
From there the visitor passes, through a suspended glass and steel walkway - the work and tourist circuits never cross - to the tub room, where a sensation of industrial order prevails; and from there to that of barrels, presided over by the idea of rest and silence, between ocher concrete walls, a tone typical of the calcareous stone of the place, with different finishes, always under very careful lighting. The bottle gabion room follows, where RCR flirts with its characteristic idea of abstraction. And, finally, by stairs and high and narrow corridors, you reach the so-called "temple", where the best wines rest, in an imposing and timeless atmosphere.
If in Bell-lloc, its previous winery, RCR proposed a buried, radical building, in Peralada it has achieved, on a much larger scale, an equally essential and honest work, but perhaps more refined and of no less impact or elegance. Worth a visit.
