…in attempt to reduce an angry snarl of pipes, tubes, and rollers to its illustrative essentials.  Josh reports that rather than sink significant amounts of money into equipment that is only used but a few days of the year, many wineries are opting for the services of mobile bottling units that come to the site, […]

Didn’t know whether to title this post “Roll out the Barrels” or the more risqué “Over a Barrel”, so in the end went with neither

With the winery structures now roughed in and ready to go for the most part, attention now turns to the winery equipment and any necessary modifications to the platforms. Here is stage 3, the press, being created from a reference photo.

A key design idea from the earliest phase of the project has been for visitors to first appear on the highest point of the island, affording panoramic views of the vineyard as well as the overall layout of the winery, such that one might be able to easily find their way around without the need […]

Next up in the build are the platforms for the first three stages for the wine game, flanking each of the three tall towers. This basic design will be further modified to suit the specifics of the winery equipment to be housed by each.

Josh mentions in a very informative blog post (and subsequent comment thread) an idea he had for the RL tasting room - a water feature functioning as a spittoon. Evoking sushi restaurants where the dishes float lazily by, he envisions as a 3-4 inch wide trough, constructed of dark slate and inlaid into the […]

Over the holidays some progress has been made on the architectural structures for which the game interface and the winery equipment will either be contained or attached. Primary goals at this point (the ‘Detailed Design’ phase) have been to examine massing, functional sequence and scale. As such, these structures are currently untextured, an exercise to […]

Here is a screenshot of the new vine row texture in action, taken from atop the cellar. It was sent to Danny Bradbury at the National Post (a national Canadian newspaper) who has expressed interest in the island.
The preparation of this image was aided greatly by Torley Linden’s ‘Advanced Snapshot Magic’ video tutorial over […]