Bio-architecture in the cellar: La Serena’s project

Architect Marcello Mantengoli designed the family cellar according to bio-architecture principles. Constructed in the early 2000s, its forms and colours were chosen to relate to the Montalcino landscape, while natural materials and sustainable building practices addressed both indoor quality and environmental context.

The building was created from the ground up around the requirements of Brunello. It provides space for storing and maturing several vintages and organises each area around the wine and the environment in which it originates.

The approximately 5-metre-high ageing room uses stacked casks, arches, vaults, rhomboid beams, terracotta elements and carefully considered lighting. A tasting room occupies the top of the tower, overlooking Monte Amiata, Montalcino, Pienza and, at dusk, the distant lights of Siena. The entrance contains a wall-sized fresco tracing the estate’s history from 1933.