Médoc Winery by Philippe Madec & Associés

In the Médoc region north of Bordeaux, the density of châteaux is probably higher than anywhere else in the world. The Cantenac-Brown estate owns one of these châteaux, built in 1806 in the finest English Tudor style. In 2019, the Le Lous family, who had made their money in medical products, bought the 75-hectare estate. The new owner, Tristan Le Lous, commissioned Philippe Madec's architecture firm to design a new building to house the fermentation tanks and cask storage.

The architects' overriding design principle was to subordinate themselves to the existing building. The new halls fit in between two elongated existing outbuildings of the château. Their material palette of beige plaster and natural stone is complemented by red painted wood on the garden side and a flat, almost windowless rammed earth wall on the street side.

Large wooden parabolic arches span the barrel store at Château Cantenac-Brown. © Luc Boegly

The core of the extension is a series of three large halls: The grapes are delivered to the harvest hall, which is open to the front. The highest part of the ensemble is the two-storey hall containing the 70 stainless steel fermentation tanks. The bright, spacious room, which is clearly a place of work, opens up to the château park through a large glass front and a brise-soleil in front of it. Daylight enters the room through triangular skylights in the massive gabled roof. No less impressive is the roof construction of the adjoining barrel room. It is only slightly lower, but much darker due to the lack of skylights. Its massive parabolic roof truss rests on A-shaped steel columns whose dark red paint matches the colour of the wooden facades.