A winemaker fulfilled her dream of a sustainable wine cellar for her organic wines – with excellent thermal insulation for a steady climate above the ground.
The dry and hot area of Carnuntum in Lower Austria, not far from Vienna, is a favourable wine making region; the Romans already appreciated the fertile hills for growing wine.
Dorli Muhr, an Austrian winemaker from Prellenkirchen in the Carnuntum region, was on a quest to find a way to store and ripen her wines in a wine cellar above the ground. The aim was to reach ideal temperatures and humidity throughout the year. The solution came in the form of double walls made of wienerberger Porotherm blocks.
The approximately 730 m2 building consists of three rooms: a 200 m2 tasting room with large windows is followed by a barrel room and a fermentation room. Built at ground level with a flat roof, the building impresses with its minimalist and modern design. Even though it is built above ground, the large mass of the double block walls helps to control indoor temperature fluctuations for several months – just like a cellar.
The architects responsible, Sabine and Stefan Laub, were using the 2226-principle to ensure a maximum of thermal insulation and a steady climate throughout the year. This approach combines architecture, materials, structure, and human experience to ensure consistent indoor temperatures of 22 to 26 °C without added heating or cooling systems. Key to this principle is the thermal inertia of materials with a high storage mass like clay blocks.
In Dorli Muhr’s wine cellar, 80 cm-thick walls built from two staggered rows of Porotherm blocks served as the exterior wall, storing heat in winter and keeping out the summer heat. The walls were constructed without additional insulation and finished with classic lime-cement plaster to maintain optimal moisture balance. “Our production serves as a model. We demonstrate how a clearly reduced, organic wine production can work hand in hand with a resource-efficient cellar, without relying on expensive technologies”, said Dorli Muhr about her new cellar. Additional to the thick, insulating walls, the wine cellar received natural shading in the form of greenery on the roof and around the building.
A trellis of greenery about 50 to 100 cm away from the walls provides natural shade and keeps the walls from overheating. On the northeast side, a large overhanging canopy provides further sun protection, and a PV system shades much of the roof while generating electricity for the building’s own use. Another part of the concept was a rainwater trench, a pond and a wind break to help create an ideal microclimate for plants and wildlife also.
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