News

Faustino unveils €15million winery project

30 September 2024 By Sarah Neish

Six years and one major unforeseen challenge later, Bodegas Faustino has cut the ribbon on its new Foster+Partners-designed winery.

On Thursday 26 September Spain’s Bodegas Faustino welcomed members of the trade and international press to the unveiling of its new “energy plus” winery in Oyón, Rioja Alavesa.

Carmen Martínez Zabala, president of Familia Martínez Zabala – which owns Bodegas Faustino – said that the project “was not without risk” but added that “we are a family of brave individuals.”

“We are green. We have always been green. And in the construction of this winery we have pushed the boundaries,” she affirmed.

Unexpected challenges

Familia Martínez Zabala enlisted Foster+Partners to design the new Faustino winery six years ago, during which time a number of unexpected challenges arose which caused the approach to the project to be re-evaluated.

Speaking exclusively to the drinks business, Javier Pérez Torrejón of Foster+Partners said that the Russia-Ukraine war had “significantly increased the cost of materials”.

He explained that although the main structure of the solar-panelled winery is made from locally-sourced larch wood from the Basque Country, Russia going to war with Ukraine had the knock-on effect of pushing up prices for all wood globally.

“Russia and Ukraine are two of the biggest exporters of wood in the world so when they stopped exporting for a while it created scarcity, which in turn pushed up the price of all wood – even local – because suddenly there was greater demand and less supply to go around,” he told db. “Everything had to be optimised”.

He pointed out a black panel in the centre of the wooden arch above the entrance door to the winery building as one of the ways in which the design had to be modified in order to optimise costs. The black device joins two pieces of wood together, as opposed to using a single long piece of wood. This was so that Foster+Partners could transport the wood to the Faustino site on “a single truck”, saving on transport costs and carbon emissions.

Lord Norman Foster said the new winery is “not just a building. It’s a strategy, a holistic vision.” Foster explained that the new solar-generated winery “is making so much energy that 70% of it is diverted elsewhere on the site.”

“If there was one feature that was absolutely non-negotiable,” he said. “it was sustainability.”

Foster+Partners also conceptualised a “column-free, fully flexible space which could accommodate all events and activities”.

Studies, sketches and many hours of work have gone into creating the new Faustino winery, said Lord Foster, “and the Zabala Martinez family has followed the project on an almost daily basis.”

The winery redesign was instigated as part of a celebration of 160 years since the Faustino winery was founded in 1861 in Oyón, where it is still located today. Carmen Martínez Zabala told guests at the opening ceremony that the hope is for the project to “attract both national and international tourism and benefit the local community.”

Following a drinks reception to celebrate the opening, Faustino put on an impressive drone light display marking “the next chapter” for the Spanish producer, which is present in 140 countries.

Careful choreography saw individual drones light up the sky in formations depicting the Zabala Martinez family crest, the Faustino logo, brand name and even a bottle of red wine being poured into a glass, with the impressive display performed to music.