In 2012, Sokol Blosser Winery commissioned Allied Works Architecture to develop a master plan and design a new tasting room and event space that would be the showpiece of their 100-acre estate. One of the founders of Oregon’s wine industry, the Sokol Blosser family has been producing Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and other varietals since 1978. The new building will provide a range of spaces for sampling the family’s wines and viewing their Yamhill County vineyards. The project will be the first to bring internationally-recognized, contemporary architecture to the heart of the Oregon wine country.
The site is organized as terraces that are carved from the contours of the Dundee Hills, one of the premiere wine growing appellations in the United States. These terraces form open and walled gardens, parking areas and outdoor event space for the new Tasting Room.
Within the building are a series of interconnected volumes with specific orientation to the surrounding landscape. A main tasting room occupies the center of the new building and includes a bar, outdoor terrace, sitting area and hearth. A library and kitchen flank the tasting room and offer a range of scales and spatial qualities for gathering and wine tasting. Below the main floor, a new cellar provides space for private tastings and wine storage. The cellar opens directly onto a private garden that is embedded in the earth and sheltered by oaks that anchor the western edge of the new building.
Inside and out, the building is unified by striated wood cladding that presents a new, organic architectural form derived from the vineyard rows and vernacular wood agricultural buildings of the region.
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