Banfi Pavilion at Vinitaly | Edoardo Milesi & Archos

The Banfi Pavilion at Vinitaly replicates a true sensory habitat, a small fertile world from which Banfi's intricate and complex research emerges: not just a history of quality wines, but the story of a centuries-old love for the land, patient and knowledgeable work in shaping and transforming the landscape and its people, the construction of the genius loci that has inspired the harmony of the Tuscan territory over the centuries. Visiting the Banfi booth is entering an evocative and experiential dimension, highly emotional, collective, multisensory, a ritualistic dimension.

Two blocks of burnt chestnut wood joined by two lattice beams: one narrow but tall, with a medieval scent, houses the entrance filter; the other, diametrically opposite, accommodates the kitchen, storage rooms, and the staircase leading to the upper floor where rooms are available to sample different wines and savor different stories.

Semi-transparent membrane sails run along the long sides, with evocative images on them: hills caressed by the sun, trees swayed by the wind and drenched by rain, moving shadows in a contamination between countryside and metropolis; scents, sounds, lights alternate to immerse the visitor in the reflections of a wine with the taste and aroma of the Mediterranean scrub.

Every designed element tells the story of Tuscany: the dark color of the walls is achieved through an ancient Japanese technique for preserving wood, very similar to the toasting of barrels; the floor is left in raw iron, and the wood used is untreated natural larch, like that of wine crates to be shipped far away, infused with the essential oils of mastic and helichrysum, extracted for the occasion.