Architect：Agence Clausel Borel

Location：Valflaunès, France; | ;View Map

Project Year：2023

Category：Wineries

Located below the Pic Saint Loup and the Hortus mount, surrounded by endless vineyards and scrublands forest, Domaine Uma feels like a place out of time. Here, we will focus on the renovation of wine cellar which was completed this summer. It is part of an overall effort to offer visitors a unique wine tourism experience including a visit to the cellar, a wine tasting either inside the building with a view into the cellar or outside on a terrace with a 360° view on the Pic Saint Loup and its surroundings, visitors can also enjoy a concert in the park, or a walk through the vineyards. The owner said “Good Wine makes a good day” and his goal is to offer visitors a break from everyday life far from the hustle and bustle of city. 

The old cellar was completely renewed and extended in the existing buildings. The estate's simple, solid stone buildings are typical of the region and are quite like those found in the Cevennes. Their shape and layout reflect the original use of the site, a former silkworm farm built at the end of the 19th century. 

The architect’s aim was both to restore the authentic and historical character of the cellar as well as to offer a place with an almost theatrical experience. The winery, while meeting its technical needs, is also a space for staging the preparation of wine. 

When you enter the cellar, it’s quite a surprise, it feels like entering a cave, from the outside you can’t look inside. Then as you enter you face a spiral staircase which stands like a sculpture, linking the ground-floor stage with the walkways. Around this central staircase, the vats laid out in a double curve to create expanding spaces in which the stainless steel and concrete vats stand out like totems. 

The aim of the walkways resting on top of the tanks is to recreate the effect of gravity and thus umilate the need for pumps. From there, we can enjoy a very different point of view and two glassed-in theatrical boxes on either side, stage manage for the oenologist who works there, and a wine tasting area on the other side. Back on the lower level, a visual breakthrough leads the eyes through an archway to the ageing cellar. Wooden barrels and ovoid concrete vats coexist, allowing the wine to age. In between the two cellars, two almost hidden stone chapels house leads to the estate's most precious bottles. 

The overall unity of the project is based on the use of materials in natural shades, linked to the surrounding landscape. The polychromic changing nature of stainless steel is underlined by the lighting created by Concepto, the lighting designer. Designed to adapt to the different functions in the winery, the lighting varies from technical lighting to colorful decorative lighting that sets the scene for the space.

After visiting the cellar, visitors can enjoy a wine tasting, sitting on the terrace, facing the Pic Saint Loup, admiring a spectacular view, and a feeling of a great thanks to mother nature for offering such a gift and the vineyard worker that maintain it. All in all, everything seems connected. Can you imagine that this beautiful landscape and this former silkworm farm are still standing there after all this time? 

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