Some wineries are recognisable before you even read the name on the label: a fa\u00e7ade that looks like a wine crate, a dome incised like a sculpture, an opening in the hillside. The project begins there, in the way a building takes its place among the vines and prepares the eye for what happens inside.<\/p>\n
For autumn 2026<\/strong> our editors have chosen 15 Italian wineries to discover through design<\/strong>. Some entrust their identity to contemporary architecture, others to the recovery of rural buildings, the strength of a material or the design of the agricultural landscape. Alongside each one we have placed a post from its official Instagram profile, to see how the winery presents itself today, between harvest and autumn light.<\/p>\n The season offers a lower light, able to lengthen shadows and bring out the texture of surfaces. The journey continues our look at wine resorts in Italy where design meets wine<\/a>, shifting the focus to forms, interiors and relationships with the land.<\/p>\n From the Langhe to Etna, from South Tyrol to Sardinia, each stop offers a different way of giving form to wine culture. The order follows the story of the projects and their atmospheres.<\/p>\n Two wine crates become architecture<\/strong><\/p>\n In the heart of Cannubi, in Barolo, L\u2019Astemia Pentita (now simply L\u2019Astemia) takes an everyday object and changes its scale. Gianni Arnaudo\u2019s design turns wine crates into large stacked volumes, legible even from afar: a pop, ironic piece of architecture that is not afraid of being looked at.<\/p>\n The form of the building and the imagery of the product belong to the same idea, which makes it a case worth studying when we talk about architecture as storytelling. Part of the production unfolds underground, while on the surface the presence remains deliberately unexpected among the autumn vineyards.<\/p>\n View this post on Instagram<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n From the official Instagram profile of L\u2019Astemia<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Contemporary rigour in the Val d\u2019Orcia<\/strong><\/p>\n Fabbrica Pienza gives architecture a precise task: to make room for production without losing the relationship with the vineyards. The working areas and an underground barrel cellar are gathered in a building designed to blend into the estate, in an amphitheatre of vines facing Pienza and Monte Amiata.<\/p>\n Clean lines and a minimalist design make the winery very different from the usual image of a Tuscan farmhouse. What matters is the measure of the intervention, the relationship between building, land and horizon, which is best understood by widening the frame and letting the landscape explain the proportions.<\/p>\n View this post on Instagram<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n From the official Instagram profile of Fabbrica Pienza<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n A winery that follows the section of the land<\/strong><\/p>\n At Le Mortelle, in the Maremma, Hydea\u2019s design places most of the production areas underground. The cylindrical structure, built with natural materials, rises over three levels around a large steel staircase and links the journey of the grapes and the wine to the depth of the building.<\/p>\n The beauty of the project is read in its section, in the continuity of its routes and in the balance between built parts and vegetation. The barrel cellar shows how much the character of a winery can depend on what the landscape conceals.<\/p>\n View this post on Instagram<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n From the official Instagram profile of Le Mortelle<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n The landscape runs through the building<\/strong><\/p>\n The winery designed by Alvisi Kirimoto for Podernuovo a Palazzone grows out of an observation of the hills, the crops and the lines of the territory. Walls, routes and openings organise the production needs while letting the landscape into the perception of the spaces.<\/p>\n What stands out is the depth of the perspectives: the eye passes through the architecture and finds its point of reference outside again. Transparency becomes a compositional choice, able to hold work and contemplation together.<\/p>\n View this post on Instagram<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n From the official Instagram profile of Podernuovo a Palazzone<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Sustainability takes shape in space<\/strong><\/p>\n Salcheto connects production, energy and landscape integration. The winery, designed by architect Michele Manelli and inaugurated in 2011, uses a gravity-fed process for winemaking and folds hospitality into the estate, among the hills of Montepulciano.<\/p>\n The detail to look at is the match between technical choices and the organisation of space: here sustainability is not a label but a building principle, so much so that the winery is cited as a reference model for winery construction.<\/p>\n View this post on Instagram<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n From the official Instagram profile of Salcheto<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Porphyry-coloured concrete and a great oak crate<\/strong><\/p>\n Markus Scherer gave Nals Margreid an architecture built on measured contrasts. The red-brown concrete walls echo the porphyry of the landscape, while the oak-clad barrel cellar recalls a very large wine crate.<\/p>\n The asymmetrical roof and the dialogue with the restored historic estate add complexity to the project. Every part of the building is recognisable through its material: wood warms, concrete defines the mass, the landscape suggests the palette.<\/p>\n View this post on Instagram<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n From the official Instagram profile of Nals Margreid<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n The wine bar as an observatory over the land<\/strong><\/p>\n At the Marlengo headquarters, which celebrates the winery\u2019s 125th anniversary in 2026, Werner Tscholl\u2019s intervention sets the solidity of the production areas against the lightness of the panoramic wine bar. The glass keeps a wide relationship with the Merano basin and the valley.<\/p>\n The eye lingers on the boundary between inside and outside: transparency, reflections and light turn tasting into an experience of space. The landscape enters the building without having to become decoration.<\/p>\n View this post on Instagram<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n From the official Instagram profile of Kellerei Cantina Merano<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n An old quarry becomes the heart of the winery<\/strong><\/p>\n Z\u00fdm\u0113 is set in a sandstone quarry in the Valpolicella. The barrel cellar carved out of the old excavation keeps a direct relationship with the stone, while the pentagonal reception building translates into architecture the symbol of the five elements essential to wine: man, vine, earth, water and sun.<\/p>\n The project sets natural matter in dialogue with geometry. In images of the underground space it is the rock that builds the atmosphere and gives the barrels a scale unlike that of ordinary ageing rooms.<\/p>\n View this post on Instagram<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n From the official Instagram profile of Z\u00fdm\u0113 Winery<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n A curved line that belongs to the hill<\/strong><\/p>\n The new Leonildo Pieropan winery, designed by Moreno Zurlo of A.c.M.e. studio, opts for underground construction to settle into the Soave landscape. Its forms follow the course of the hills and terraces, making the landscape a concrete point of reference.<\/p>\n The curved fa\u00e7ade is the sign by which the project is recognised. Seen together with the slope, it helps us understand how a production building can have a precise presence and still leave room for the continuity of the land.<\/p>\n View this post on Instagram<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n From the official Instagram profile of Pieropan<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Architecture, interiors and graphics speak the same language<\/strong><\/p>\n At Feudi di San Gregorio, Hikaru Mori and Maurizio Zito worked on the architecture, while Massimo and Lella Vignelli contributed to the interiors and the company\u2019s visual culture, down to the mosaic labels. The project links production spaces, hospitality, design and contemporary art.<\/p>\n Its strength is continuity across different scales, from the building to the furnishings to the graphic mark on a bottle. The winery shows how an identity can be built through coherent choices, recognisable in a hall as much as in a small object.<\/p>\n View this post on Instagram<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n From the official Instagram profile of Feudi di San Gregorio<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Stepping inside an Arnaldo Pomodoro sculpture<\/strong><\/p>\n Tenute Lunelli\u2019s Carapace brings Arnaldo Pomodoro\u2019s research to the scale of a habitable space. The great copper-clad dome, marked by incisions and fractures, rises among the vineyards as a sculptural presence.<\/p>\n The relationship between the outer surface and the inner space is the heart of the work. The project invites us to see a winery as a place where production and art can share the same form without losing their link to the surrounding land.<\/p>\n View this post on Instagram<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n From the official Instagram profile of Tenute Lunelli<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Lava stone keeps the memory of the work<\/strong><\/p>\n At Palmento Costanzo, the restoration of the old palmento gives back centrality to a rural architecture built for winemaking. Channels, levels and rooms tell of a building knowledge that used gravity to carry the must through its different stages.<\/p>\n The conservative restoration and the adjoining modern winery connect memory with new production needs. Lava stone is the material thread of the story: in the surfaces and details one recognises a way of building tied to Etna.<\/p>\n View this post on Instagram<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n From the official Instagram profile of Palmento Costanzo Etna Wine<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Agricultural design on Etna\u2019s eastern slope<\/strong><\/p>\n In Milo, on Etna\u2019s eastern slope, Barone di Villagrande preserves an agricultural history that the estate traces back to 1727. In this selection what matters most is the landscape the estate makes legible: the relationship between vineyards, altitude and the view of the coast.<\/p>\n Here the project is not a single architectural gesture and must be read as a whole, in the weave of the rows, the volcanic soil and the spaces of the estate. It is the stop that reminds us that the design of a winery can be, first of all, the design of a landscape.<\/p>\n View this post on Instagram<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n From the official Instagram profile of Villagrande<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n The stone pyramids in the wine landscape<\/strong><\/p>\n In Cottanera\u2019s vineyards you find the so-called Etna pyramids, pointed heaps of lava stone that mark the agricultural landscape. The winery includes them in the story of the territory, making them a recognisable part of the experience of the place.<\/p>\n It is a presence that widens the theme of design to material culture and the form of the landscape. The piled stone, the geometry of the rows and the profile of the volcano make up an image unlike that of a signature winery, yet just as much designed, by time.<\/p>\n View this post on Instagram<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n From the official Instagram profile of Cottanera<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Local material defines the volume<\/strong><\/p>\n Su\u2019entu, designed in 2015 by Mario Casciu and Francesca Rango, follows the line of the ridge around a central courtyard. Local stone walls, whitewashed surfaces, glulam beams and steel dialogue with the production volumes, while a cantilevered roof shades the courtyard from the sun.<\/p>\n Its visual strength lies in the relationship between mass and void: dense walls, deep shadows, large glazed sections of the tasting room opening onto the landscape. Here the identity of the territory comes through construction and through surfaces able to give the building character.<\/p>\n15 Italian wineries, 15 ways of interpreting design<\/h2>\n
1. L\u2019Astemia Pentita, Barolo (Piedmont)<\/h3>\n
2. Fabbrica Pienza, Pienza (Tuscany)<\/h3>\n
3. Le Mortelle, Castiglione della Pescaia (Tuscany)<\/h3>\n
4. Podernuovo a Palazzone, San Casciano dei Bagni (Tuscany)<\/h3>\n
5. Salcheto, Montepulciano (Tuscany)<\/h3>\n
6. Nals Margreid, Nalles (South Tyrol)<\/h3>\n
7. Cantina Merano, Marlengo (South Tyrol)<\/h3>\n
8. Z\u00fdm\u0113, San Pietro in Cariano (Veneto)<\/h3>\n
9. Pieropan, Soave (Veneto)<\/h3>\n
10. Feudi di San Gregorio, Sorbo Serpico (Campania)<\/h3>\n
11. Carapace, Bevagna (Umbria)<\/h3>\n
12. Palmento Costanzo, Castiglione di Sicilia (Sicily)<\/h3>\n
13. Barone di Villagrande, Milo (Sicily)<\/h3>\n
14. Cottanera, Castiglione di Sicilia (Sicily)<\/h3>\n
15. Su\u2019entu, Sanluri (Sardinia)<\/h3>\n