The brief
A run of vaulted cellar spaces beneath a vineyard in rural Alicante - groin vaults, arched openings and long barrel ceilings - to be finished for wine storage and tasting.
The requirement was as much environmental as visual: a cellar has to hold a steady climate and the finish had to let the old masonry breathe while looking as if it had always been there.
What we did
Marmorino Carrara is a lime plaster and lime is the right material for a cellar: it is vapour-open, it buffers humidity rather than trapping it and it is naturally resistant to mould. Applied over the vaults it lets the masonry behind it regulate the air - exactly what stored wine wants.
Working overhead on curved geometry is slow, deliberate work. The vaults were plastered in sections that follow the ribs, so the trowel movement runs with the curve of each bay rather than fighting it. The arches were carried through in one pass from springing to springing.
The colour is a soft warm white with the natural grey speckle of Carrara marble dust - under the cellar's low lighting it reads as pale stone rather than painted plaster.
The detail
- Marmorino Carrara lime plaster to vaults, arches and walls.
- Vapour-open finish - the masonry breathes and the cellar climate holds.
- Plastered bay by bay along the vault ribs.
- Natural marble-dust tone under low light.
The result
The cellar does two jobs for its owner. Lime plaster breathes, so the old masonry stays dry and the vaults hold a steady climate for the wine, and the same material reads as one continuous stone interior, catching the low light as if quarried. It is a finish chosen for what it does as much as for how it looks, and it will age with the building rather than against it.
