Antinori Winery

It’s a bit of a drive, this, but worth the excursion. Antinori is a famous wine producer, with a cantina near Orvieto producing respected whites.

But for the architecture alone, a trip to the Tuscan home of its Chianti reds is definitely worthwhile.

Designed by Marco Casamonti of Italian architecture practice Archea Associati, Antinori is part winery, part lair of a Bond villain, featuring an extraordinary cantilevered wing extending the vineyard above it across a huge terrace seemingly carved from the hillside. Each of the three levels is vertically linked by an extraordinary spiral staircase which, like the canopy above it, has no visible means of support.

You can take a guided tour of the winery which takes in the ageing rooms, which are embedded deep in the hillside, followed by a tasting session in one of the glass booths suspended above the huge wooden barrels.