“It’s a lot of fun to see the positive response we’ve received. Our most unique feature is our own inhouse winery. The second you enter the lobby and put your bags down, you can instantly see wine tanks and barrels through a glass wall. The entire winemaking process takes place right in front of your eyes.”
So says Sofia Ruhne, who is presently hard at work at all events surrounding the grand opening. She is a part owner of the Winery Hotel and, with an extensive experience in winemaking, also partly responsible for inventing the winery concept.
It is here that 10 000 bottles a year will be produced, using grapes shipped to Stockholm from Tuscany. This process requires enormous precision in many parts.
“Wine is very much alive. It is affected by ambient temperature and humidity, but also by the earth’s gravity, the moon’s position and various forms of inclement weather. The single most crucial part of winemaking is that the temperature does not shift from day to day. This will stress the wine, making it mature either faster or slower than at an optimum pace. Rather, wine maturation must take place at as even a pace as possible, enabling each individual process to take its required time”, says Sofia Ruhne.
Cooperation is key
It is Regin’s EXOscada control system, a web-based building automation software, that supervises the climate control system in the winemaking process. Both ventilation and heating control systems in other parts of the hotel are also supplied by Regin. Specific demands have been placed on all systems, as the Winery Hotel is a designer hotel where everything must fit into the same style. Following demands from the hotel architect, Regin has developed special, black casings for the room controllers mounted in each of the 184 hotel rooms.
The technical solutions have been developed in close cooperation between Regin and systems integrator Setex. They are part of Regin’s partner network of certified integrators, planning, installing, commissioning and maintaining the company’s products.
Nominated Building of the Year
The carefully thought-out design, permeating the entire hotel, has paid off. The Winery Hotel has been nominated Building of the Year 2016 by Swedish industry magazine Byggindustrin.
“This is great news for us, since we want to be more than just wine. We want to offer unique experiences throughout the entire building”, Sofia Ruhne says.