Grapes, Geometry, And The Genius of Norman Foster

Norman Foster designing a winery? I know what you’re thinking—the same Norman Foster who gave us London’s Gherkin and Apple Park decided to dabble in Tempranillo? Trust me, I had the same incredulous reaction when I first heard about Portia. But here I was, standing in Spain’s Ribera del Duero, staring at a three-pointed steel and glass star rising from the rolling hills like some alien spacecraft that had crash-landed in the wine country. This was Foster’s first and only venture into winemaking architecture, nestled in what locals call the Golden Triangle—three ancient villages (Roa, La Horra, and Gumiel de Izán) that form the heart of Ribera del Duero’s finest viticulture.

“You know, people don’t realise just how vast Castilla y León is,” Mara Castaño, my guide, tells me, gesturing toward the rolling landscape. “This region is larger than Portugal by area—can you imagine? Yet only about 2 million people call it home, most living in tiny villages that some have barely fifteen souls left. Ribera del Duero is a relatively intimate stretch of land—just 115 kilometres from east to west, 35 from north to south—through bits of Burgos, Soria, Segovia, and Valladolid, with the Duero River threading through it all like a lifeline. Castaño pauses, her eyes following the river’s distant curve. “The Faustino family has been making wine here since 1861—six generations of dedication to this craft. When they built this place, they weren’t just creating another winery but building a monument to everything their family had poured into these vines over a century.”

“The adventure in this region began in the 1990s,” Portia’s on-site manager, David Angulo, told me as we surveyed the vineyard landscape. “Julio Faustino, representing the third generation of the family, decided to purchase various vineyards here, in the Golden Triangle. This zone is considered the best area for viticulture, where the finest vineyards are found.” The timing wasn’t accidental. In 1982, fifty determined winemakers had gathered to create the Ribera del Duero appellation with a radical manifesto: quality over quantity, fewer bottles at premium prices rather than flooding the market with mediocrity.

The Architect’s Sommelier

Foster’s genius wasn’t just in creating something beautiful—though Portia certainly stops traffic—but in understanding winemaking’s sacred geometry. That three-pointed star isn’t architectural showmanship; each wing serves winemaking’s holy trinity—fermentation, barrel ageing, and bottle maturation. Foster’s team embedded themselves with the winemakers for two harvest seasons, watching grapes transform into liquid poetry before putting pencil to paper.

“This is the first section of the winery, part of what we call the D.O. Arribes,” Angulo said as we walked into the ground-level fermentation area. “This is where we receive the grapes and begin the winemaking process. The alcoholic fermentation takes place here, in stainless steel tanks. This is the only ground-level area—all other sections are built underground to maintain constant temperature throughout the year.” After harvesting, grapes arrive via a road that rises directly onto the roof, where they’re dropped into the hopper. Gravity—not machinery—moves everything through Foster’s design, maximising energy efficiency while minimising damage to the delicate fruit.

“The second section is the barrel room,” Angulo continued, leading us deeper into the star’s embrace. “Here, the wine undergoes malolactic fermentation—the second stage of the process. The third area is the bottle rack room. At the centre is what we call ‘The Heart of Portia.’ Just like a heart in a body, this space connects all sections while serving as our social area—reception, wine shop, restaurant, and offices.”

Construction began in 2006 and took four years to complete, using just four materials: glass from bottles, steel from fermentation tanks, wood from barrels, and concrete from traditional vessels. But there’s a fifth, secret material that made me grin. “There’s also cork,” Angulo said with a knowing smile. “You’ll notice it in small holes throughout the winery. It’s a little joke from the architect—corks are essential to wine but also serve a safety purpose here. If someone has had too much wine, they won’t hurt themselves sticking their fingers into the holes!”

Portia produces around one million bottles annually from over 160 hectares of vineyards—each drop highlighting the family’s uncompromising vision. “In the early years, Sir Julio and his team began producing their first wines,” Angulo recounted. “By 2003, the first Portia wine was finally available in stores. This wine quickly became our most successful product and marked the birth of the brand.” Interestingly, this original wine wasn’t made at the current winery but in Aranda de Duero. Nonetheless, it laid the foundation for what Portia would become. The philosophy was clear—impose a 6,000-kilogram-per-hectare yield limit, a self-imposed constraint that seems almost monastic. More grapes mean less concentration and less soul. Tempranillo—or Tinta del País as locals lovingly call it—must comprise at least 75% of any blend.

Eat Like the Grapes Are Watching

But let’s talk about lunch, because that’s where Portia truly seduced me. Chef Germán Arroyo channels the soil, sun, and grapes into each dish, crafting flavours that don’t just pair with the wine—they sing with it. We started with something that sounds completely mad: Corte de Frambuesa, Foie y Palomitas—foie gras with popcorn. I know how it sounds, but the sweet-salty crunch against rich foie created a textural playground that made perfect sense with our first sip of Portia Crianza 2021. The Croquetón de Hongos—a mushroom croquette—melted on my tongue, followed by crispy Duelas de Morcilla de Arroz Frita: blood sausage crisped to perfection, nestled on apple compote with piquillo alioli. The sweet-savoury combination was intoxicating.

The Empanadilla de Ternera packed a serious punch—a beef empanada with Thai sauce and guacamole that shouldn’t work but absolutely does. It’s this fearless fusion that makes Spanish cuisine so exciting right now. But the Carrillera de Cerdo Guisada con Boletus stopped conversation entirely. Braised pork cheek with mushrooms, so tender it yielded to a fork’s gentle persuasion—rich and comforting like a Castilian winter evening. Dessert was pure poetry: Torrija tradicional, perfectly caramelised, transforming humble bread into something celestial.

Every bite was paired with Portia Crianza 2021—fourteen months in French oak with a three-month finish in American oak. This dual-oak treatment creates the complexity that made our lunch pairing so sublime. The wine is deep, bold, uncompromising, yet elegant enough to dance with foie gras and blood sausage without missing a beat. In Portia’s cellars, 90% French oak reigns supreme, with 10% American oak providing a subtle counterpoint. Their signature expressions draw from increasingly venerable vineyards—Lantigua’s 75-year-old vines birth Prima, while 86-year-old plants yield Triennia. Summa draws from ancient vines.

For premium wines, fermentation happens in conical tanks of 30,000 litres, providing gentle extraction of aromas. The fermentation wing remains exposed to the outside, allowing carbon dioxide to escape naturally, while the barrel and bottle cellars are partly dug into the sloping site. Embedding the building this way creates optimal ageing conditions through a passive environmental strategy, exploiting the earth’s thermal properties in conjunction with concrete’s thermal mass to regulate internal climate. No energy-guzzling cooling systems needed—just intelligent design working with nature’s physics.

What makes Ribera del Duero extraordinary isn’t just terroir—it’s philosophy. The winery won a RIBA European award in 2011 and was a finalist for the RIBA Stirling Prize. But accolades aside, standing in Portia’s heart, surrounded by Foster’s architectural meditation on winemaking, I realised this isn’t just a winery—it’s a manifesto. Inside, the space doubles as a contemporary gallery, featuring rotating exhibitions by national and international artists. Santiago, a Mallorcan artist, captured Portia’s essence perfectly in his sculpture, which depicts a falling wine drop, frozen in time yet suggesting eternal movement. That’s Portia—rooted in centuries of tradition yet constantly evolving, much like the wines themselves.

The Final Pour

Every bottle of Portia carries the essence of rebellion—against quantity over quality, against settling for good enough, against the notion that great wine cannot also embody great art. Open daily except Mondays, with tastings starting at €14 and VIP tours reaching €500, Portia proves that Foster may have built his reputation on airports and skyscrapers. Still, he’s created something far more intimate here in Spain’s Golden Triangle. In this space, magic comes bottled, aged to perfection, and delivered in a setting where design-forward architecture channels generations of winemaking mastery.