Brolo della Cantina Gorgo Winery by Bricolo Falsarella: A Contemporary Ode to Vernacular Italian Architecture

In the heart of Custoza, Italy, nestled within the rolling morainic hills near Lake Garda, stands the beautifully reimagined Il Brolo della Cantina Gorgo Winery, a project by renowned architects Bricolo Falsarella. Completed in 2021, this 1,750 m² architectural intervention responds to the booming rise of wine tourism in Italy, creating a space where landscape, tradition, and contemporary design seamlessly converge.

Expanding Wine Tourism: From Enclosed to Open-Air Experience

As Italy’s wine regions draw increasing numbers of visitors eager to experience authentic wine tasting amidst natural surroundings, historic wineries like Cantina Gorgo recognized the need to expand. But rather than adding another enclosed tasting room or retail space, the owners envisioned something more integrated: an open-air experience rooted in the landscape itself. They turned to Bricolo Falsarella, who proposed a design inspired by the vernacular architectural heritage of the Veneto region.

Reinterpreting the Brolo: A Hybrid Between Interior and Exterior

The architects drew inspiration from the brolo, a centuries-old rural typology in Veneto—a hybrid space that blurs the lines between indoor and outdoor environments. Unlike previous enclosed additions (including the wine shop, tasting rooms, and barrique cellar developed between 2005–2016), this new intervention occupies the rear of the main courtyard. Here, the design unfolds as an elongated rectangular room under the open sky, bounded by walls that form a large central void—a void that becomes the physical, architectural, and symbolic heart of the winery.

This central space invites visitors to pause, gather, and fully immerse themselves in the sensory richness of the site: framed views, shifting light, and the textured beauty of the surrounding vineyards. Through subtle gestures—wings, hints, and architectural frames—the project activates the landscape, creating a new kind of hospitality where guests become part of the setting rather than passive observers.

Materiality: Raw, Authentic, Expressive

True to Bricolo Falsarella’s signature approach, the material palette plays a crucial role in connecting the architecture to its environment. The project uses rough-hewn stone, fair-faced reinforced concrete, brushed wood, and rusty iron—materials chosen for their raw authenticity and their ability to interact expressively with sunlight. These tactile surfaces echo the rough beauty of vernacular rural buildings, grounding the project firmly in its local context while asserting a contemporary architectural language.

The use of these materials is not just an aesthetic choice but a philosophical stance—a way of reintroducing human presence, slowness, and material honesty into an age increasingly dominated by speed, superficiality, and technological detachment.

A New Italian Architecture: Beyond Nostalgia

Il Brolo della Cantina Gorgo Winery is more than just a space for tasting wine—it represents a vision for a new Italian architecture. This is not a nostalgic return to the past but a cultural awakening that seeks to refound vernacular traditions, freeing them from the merely picturesque and reinterpreting them through modern, timeless expressions. The design offers visitors a “calibrated microcosm” where they can rediscover the slowness of observation and experience, connecting more deeply with the place, the culture, and themselves.

This project stands as a quiet manifesto for how architecture can be deeply rooted in local identity while remaining forward-looking, offering a model for other wineries and cultural sites across Italy seeking to balance authenticity with innovation.

All Photographs are works of Atelier XYZ