A view of the Rioja Alavesa signature winery
The essence of the work can be extracted from the tourist brochure: “Santiago Calatrava was inspired by the Sierra de Cantabria to design this winery” . It says nothing about the human being, nor about the image of the medieval town of Laguardia that it leaves behind. He speaks of the mountain, its bare peaks and its melancholy bordering position. . Behind there are no more speeches or rhetoric than the beauty of this place. In this face to face between architecture and nature there is only respect, reinterpretation and integration.
This point was reached after a contest organized by the Domeq group at the beginning of the century. They were looking for an icon, a silhouette that would give it strength and personality. They were even looking for a logo. Santiago Calatrava won. , who had the privilege of choosing where he would settle his creation, something almost unprecedented until then. He established the perfect point in which the artificial peaks fit in with the natural massifs, without supplying them or allowing themselves to be self-conscious. He added a larger 'mountain' for the social area and covered the facade with walnut wood, resistant and respectful of the ocher colors of the riverside land. The Valencian touch was not lacking , the Mediterranean signature of its author that translates into a small sea at the gates delimited by a swimming pool covered by mosaics.
The Valencian touch of Calatrava: not everything was going to be dry
**Ysios** achieved his goal early on. Since it opened its doors in 2001, the brand and the winery have effectively allied themselves. If an earthquake brought down the building, everything would lose the aesthetic sense that is so present in its wines. Its name comes from the union of the names of ISIs and Osiris, the Egyptian gods that mythology links with viticulture. And the Y? A license for its resemblance to a wine glass.
It may be a whole marketing case study, but in the eyes of the visitor what there is is a place in which unlikely spaces follow one another, marked by the curvature and movement of the exterior appearance. Even the decantation room (traditionally one of the ugliest places in a winery) is different, due to its proximity to the fan-ceiling. The design does not guarantee that the wine will be better or that the fermentations will be successful. That is the winemaker's job.
The risk of the wine taking a backseat is eliminated as soon as you land at the barrel ship . It is the most important part of the route where the barrels are placed as if they were the musicians of an orchestra, all attentive to the visitor, who from the central end feels the owner of an imaginary baton. This provision is not a whim. Although there is no evidence of the curvature of the walls (there, Calatrava, you have shown off), the barrels only respond with parallel lines and other more unruly lines to a wall where the presence of the Ysios logo He rules as a deity.
Right on one side of this room are the most exclusive barrels, those owned by a select club of members . And what is grace? Search and find the names carved in the wood. The most characteristic, that of the King of Spain.
The nave of the barrels is the jewel in the crown
At this point it is easy to see that Ysios intends to be more than a museum, a snobbish place of pilgrimage . But the confirmation of this suspicion comes in the corridor that separates the barrel room from the bottle room. This space is used for exhibit the cups exclusively designed by the British artist Kacper Hamilton inspired by the deadly sins . awarding the number 8 to wine , the rest were recreated with originality and good taste, making anger a cup-dagger or laziness a dropper to drink from passively. This mini gallery is contemplated with the watercolors of Calatrava himself on the building, in which the shape (which it has) of a wine glass is better appreciated from a bird's eye view.
But let's be honest, we have come to what we have come for. The tasting is enjoyed from the breathtaking views of the second floor of the central module . To one side, the barrels lie at our feet. On the other, behind the eye-window that rises above the door, the views of Laguardia. Basically the two intangible essences of a good wine: his land and his wooden home.
If you want to know more, do not stay with desire!
- Five instants and four wines in Rioja Alavesa
- La Rioja 'On fire'
- Portia Cellars, Norman Foster's Cathedral
And let's not lose sight of what is important: the tasting
Ysios: contrast of wood and vine