Dream Winery Design - Your wishlist?

Hi all, I’m consulting for a new winery startup. The owner is an architect (but not a winemaker) so I have an opportunity to advise him on what to include in the initial design.

As winemakers, if you could ask an architect to design a small winery just for you, what would you make sure is included?

#1 floors that slope towards the drains

Here’s a few: 120V, 240V, 480V no more than 25 feet of where they will be used. Nitrogen or argon, compressed air, & water (hot & cold) all with their dedicated disconnects everywhere. Dedicated hardware, tools, pumps…in each and every room, otherwise you will be paying someone to be a gofer 15% of their shift. An Ozone generator or two equipped with both liquid and gassing options. And last but not least a quality coffee brewer. Anything else is above my pay-grade

LOL, I was thinking some of those things would be mentioned, but I missed the quality coffee brewer. Not sure it’s a built-in, but will add to the list.

+1. Amazing how often this doesn’t happen!

Passively cooled building

Kegerator stocked with good but not too strong craft ale at all times.

Trap door for disposing of obnoxious, know it all but never buy anything visitors.

How about a dry chem and paper goods storage closet with a curb so a cellar wash up doesn’t high tide stacks of dry bags? Or a loft storage area with a dumb-waiter so workers don’t have to schlep 60# bags and boxes up and down a loft ladder?
Although a curb would probably require a four-foot long handicap ramp, so maybe the loft-lift is the way to go …

Aside from the things already mentioned…

  1. Instead of an ozone cart, get a central unit and have ozone water drops everywhere you have hot and cold water. We did that in our place and it’s soooooo awesome. We can have everyone ozoning at the same time - cleaning equip, barrels, floors, etc all at once.

  2. Loading dock. A double wide loading dock somewhere in the parking lot, away from the building. That way you don’t tie up a winery door that you need to keep clear. Make sure there’s enough room for the trucks to get into the dock easily. We use one of the spaces to park a refrigerated trailer for cold storage during harvest - saves interior space.

  3. Roll up doors with remote control (both external and internal).

Single stack barrel room like Brian’s picture is one of my favorites. I am still able to but as we grow may have to start stacking someday or build an addition.

Gravity flow, from crush pad to fermentation to barrel to bottle. A forklift will work for gravity in most cases but not all.

A covered crush pad to keep sun off fruit and crew.

A helicopter landing pad.

Great ideas, thanks guys! Ozone drops, what an awesome idea.

I particularly like the helicopter landing pad, because once you have the pad, you have to buy the helicopter, right? And … does the helipad symbol override the necessity to paint handicap parking signs on the crushpad?

I see what you did there. Well done!
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Okay, Curtis, bless his heart, clued me in to the helicopter thread. Omigod. I had a feeling there was something I was missing. Only in my mind, I was afraid it had to do with that Swedish wine writer dude who said, “This wine makes me so happy I want to do the helicopter!” I seriously, do not ever want to be reminded of that thread ever again.

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This is huge. I went to a tasting at Ridge’s Lytton Springs on a very hot day. The covered outdoor crushpad, where our tables were, was very cool.

Isn’t that what pallets and forklifts are for?

Apparently in a well run cellar. But I’ve been in places with either soggy boxes of supplies or a loft higher and deeper than the forks.

A good water filtration system, on demand hot water, a commercial dishwasher for those multi-glass tastings, a music system with speakers throughout the winery, electric forklift(s), multiple pallet jacks, a kitchen, a bbq area and an outdoor pizza oven, a shower for those long, hot harvest days, a fittings board, catwalks around the tanks, a bigger chiller than you think you’ll ever need, 3 square feet total for every case you plan on producing 10 years from now, 24 foot ceilings, a separate storage area for case goods/library, a few apartments or a guest house for interns and guests, a sorting table with an elevator into the destemmer/press, a walk-in cooler stocked with beer, a self-cleaning press, at least two roll up doors or loading docks so you can receive/ship product during bottling, an automated barrel washing station, solar panels on the roof, and I’m sure I’ll think of 30 other things tomorrow.

Hi, Mary!!

Deeper pockets.

I’m still a neophyte, but beyond sloped floors that run to easily-cleanable drains, I would focus most of my effort on designing a space that allows for easy, obvious workflow. I’m pretty sure most people here have worked in less than ideal situations with less than ideal equipment, and it feels to me like you can save way more energy and effort with a good working layout than you can by buying a bunch of extra equipment past the basic stuff. Then again I’ve washed more than a few barrels by hand; “basic” equipment is a pretty broad category (dear God I can’t wait to be able to use a barrel washer).

Maybe that should all be taken as granted, but I’m in the middle of a full remodel of a 21-story office high-rise, and you’d be amazed (or maybe not amazed) at how many obvious details go by the wayside because the people doing construction have totally different priorities than the people (me) doing the operation and maintenance.