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Bodegas Faustino and Foster+Partners are building together the new Faustino-Foster+Partners Project 2024, to turn Bodegas Faustino into the “most innovative and sustainable architectural complex around wine in the world”, according to the company. It will be called ‘The Legacy of Bodegas Faustino’, and has been designed by Foster+Partners. It involves “a complete redesign of Bodegas Faustino, which benefits the entire winery and estate, making Bodegas Faustino a new paradigm of what the wineries of the future will be like”.
This project includes the construction of new visitor areas and new buildings, as well as a series of renovations to existing facilities and buildings, “which have already enabled the most cutting-edge and innovative developments in technology and sustainability to be applied to the production and ageing of Faustino, the leading brand of the highest quality Rioja wines in the world”.
According to the company, as a result of these works, the new facilities of Bodegas Faustino will allow visitors “to enjoy the most complete and exclusive set of experiences around wine, vineyards, nature, architecture, culture and sustainability in a unique proposal of connection of all the spaces with the vineyards, which become part of the architectural complex”.
“All of this in a historic winery that is more than 160 years old, with more than 60,000 barrels in which the highest quality Rioja wines are aged and more than nine million bottles of Reserva and Gran Reserva de Rioja, and which will continue to produce and age world-leading Rioja wines,” the winery said.
The first phase of Bodegas Faustino’s new project can now be visited.
The first phase of ‘El Legado de Bodegas Faustino’, Proyecto Faustino – Foster+Partners 2024, which can already be visited, involves the reconversion of the entire environment and the intervention in the interior and exterior spaces of the winery occupied for the production and ageing of wine.
And, at the same time, it improves the productivity of Bodegas Faustino, thanks to the better management of time and quality in all the processes that this renovation facilitates. Among the sensitive improvements that Foster+Partners has designed for Bodegas Faustino in this first phase are the covering of the façades with vegetation, “which results in a new evolutionary appearance that makes the project more sustainable, as it helps to maintain the temperature more efficiently”; and the creation of a new winemaking cellar, which has differentiating tools for the production of very high quality white wines to respond to market demand. “This is the case of the use of inclined hoppers, boreal system (cooling of the entire grape pulp to improve fermentation and therefore quality), working with inert gases or the use of innovative techniques in the fermentation processes”, they added.
Also the renovation of the colour of the exterior paving and façades, opting for a colour that does not absorb heat, which makes energy use more efficient; the installation of solar panels in existing buildings and in new facilities; and the change in the flow scheme of visitors and daily business activity through actions that involve an aesthetic change and an architectural change, to make productive activity compatible with the presence of visitors.
Bodegas Faustino, world leader
Lourdes Martínez Zabala, CEO of Familia Martínez Zabala, stated that “Bodegas Faustino is a unique, innovative, technological and sustainable world-leading brand that is a benchmark for Rioja wines of the highest quality. Now, ‘El Legado de Bodegas Faustino’, Proyecto Faustino – Foster+Partners 2024 allows Bodegas Faustino to live and develop in an architectural space that has those same attributes and projects Bodegas Faustino into the future, while allowing us to be a tourist destination, helping to energise the Oyón area, our roots, and the Rioja Designation of Origin”.
Carmen Martínez Martínez Zabala, president of Familia Martínez Zabala, explained that “Familia Martínez Zabala is a pioneer in architectural development in the world of wineries. More than 30 years ago we built Bodegas Campillo, and twelve years ago we created Bodegas Portia, the first winery built by Foster+Partners. Now it is logical to take a step forward and consolidate ‘El Legado de Bodegas Faustino’ as a new dimension of wine tourism that houses a much more complete and avant-garde set of experiences that allows us to increase the level of knowledge about the vineyards and wine of our visitors”.