A Cloud With A Silver Lining

Mark Pupo -- Interior Design, 6/1/2006 12:00:00 AM

When wineries don't have a long, august history, they often conjure the impression of one by building a faux château. Stratus Vineyards, in the burgeoning wine region of Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, did something different. The six-year-old company's home is as strikingly contemporary as the herbicide-free wines produced there are complex in flavor. This is also the first winery in the world to earn LEED Silver certification.

Stratus is the baby of Teknion's president and CEO, David Feldberg. Envisioning a boutique winery as design-conscious and eco-friendly as the office furniture manufactured by his company, Feldberg hired Burdifilek to complete the operation's public spaces. Before creative partner Diego Burdi and managing partner Paul Filek even began, they visited the local competition and decided that Stratus's advantage was, in fact, its newness. Õe;

Entry to the 4,350-square-foot public spaces, which make up about a fifth of the complex, is through monumental 12-foot-tall oak doors. Behind them are a retail area and two separate rooms used both for tasting seminars and for demonstrations by visiting chefs. Most of the illumination comes from the sun, complementing the winery's other LEED-specific efforts: the use of recycled and renewable materials, geothermal heating and cooling from 24 wells dug 225 feet deep, a washroom with waterless urinals, extensive composting, and an employee bike-to-work program.

Burdifilek experimented with texture and drew inspiration for colors from the rich espresso-brown soil and the gray outcroppings surrounding the site. Some walls are paneled in brushed, sandblasted rift-cut oak; others are covered in a luminous compound of cement and plaster mixed with quartz and dove-gray pigment. In the middle of the expanse of low-maintenance terrazzo flooring, the partners used elegant 12-foot-tall cabinetry of oak and steel to build an intimate room within a room. On a functional level, the shelves hold design books, stemware, and row upon row of the winery's bottles.

The pair of adjoining tasting rooms are a study in subtle contrasts. The smaller one resembles a dining hall in a gentlemen's club, with walls paneled in squares of oiled end-grain Texas mesquite. (That's one of the few materials not locally sourced.) The drum shades of two pendant fixtures hang low over a communal table topped in whitewashed oak. At one end of the room stands a lacquered credenza in a shade of merlot.

The larger tasting room is just as well appointed, but you'd be forgiven for not noticing. This space is all about the views: One set of windows faces out, to the vineyards; another set faces in, to the barrel room. If visitors spared a moment to look up at the ceiling, they'd see an intricate jigsaw puzzle: panels of parallel-strand engineered lumber arranged in a layered wave.

"Stratus is a winery without baggage," Burdi explains. "It has a high-end product. The visitor concentrates on the experience of the wine, not on the usual winery paraphernalia of crested baseball caps and key chains."

The galvanized-steel cladding of the press alley at Stratus Vineyards in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, frames a window to the retail area.

Clockwise from top: Custom display cases in steel and whitewashed oak form a smaller room in the center of the retail space's terrazzo floor. Bottles of Stratus Red and Stratus White line the shelves. A commissioned canvas by Richard Halliday hangs behind a bar of marble and oak.

Clockwise from top: In the smaller tasting room, pendant fixtures with linen shades, an oak-topped table, and wool-covered chairs, all custom, complement a wall clad in 2-inch squares of oiled end-grain Texas mesquite. A custom mahogany screen slides back and forth between the retail space and the wine-making facility. In the larger tasting room, adjacent to the barrel room, ceiling panels are parallel-strand engineered lumber.

CUSTOM TANK SUPPORT (PRESS ALLEY): STEVES WELDING SANDBLASTING. FLOORING: BRAVO CEMENT. FLOORING (RETAIL SPACE): YORK MARBLE TILE TERRAZZO. CEILING INSTALLATION (RETAIL SPACE, TASTING ROOM): DOOLEYS MILLWORK. WALL COVERING (SMALL TASTING ROOM), RUGS (TASTING ROOMS): SULLIVAN SOURCE. CHAIR FABRIC (TASTING ROOMS): THROUGH PRIMAVERA INTERIOR FURNISHINGS. WALL FINISHING (LARGE TASTING ROOM): MOSS AND LAM. CEILING MATERIAL: TRUS JOIST. RECESSED CEILING FIXTURES (LARGE TASTING ROOM), LIGHTING CONSULTANT: TPL LIGHTING. WINDOWS: KAWNEER. MILLWORK:UNIQUE STORE FIXTURES. STRUCTURAL ENGINEER, MEP: SANDWELL INTERNATIONAL. BUILDING ARCHITECT, PROJECT MANAGER: ANDREW INCORPORATED ARCHITECT. GENERAL CONTRACTOR: NEWMAN BROS.