New winery, traditional methods
La Raia’s new winery, covering over 2500 square meters, is a building made unique by its design and by the technological solutions employed.
Created by architect Ivana Porfiri, it is a flagship for the whole of Piedmont and a good example of how technology, tradition and design can be combined. Among the building’s peculiarities are a huge crystal façade housing the stainless steel tanks and a rammed clay wall sheltering the winemaking equipment. In building the wall, the first of its kind in Italy, the ancient Pisé technique was employed.
Many buildings in the Gavi area were in fact originally constructed with clay, but in recent years knowledge of this technique had been lost. In Northern Europe, however, rammed earth has been reintroduced, and many museums, buildings and congress centres boast splendid clay walls. Austrian Martin Rauch - who pioneered modern technical applications for traditional rammed earth construction - helped us complete this demanding project.