Raise A Toast To This Sleek Spirits Shop In Portugal

When Tiago do Vale designed the original space for Bottles Congress, a wine and spirits shop in Braga, Portugual, the client wanted something sleek and reproducible. “Our aim was a systematized design,” do Vale says, “able to present and store a large number of items in a methodical way.” The success of their design prompted something more ambitious: the 1075-square-foot Bottles Recess, a space for wine tastings and events for which, he says, “we wanted an exact opposite approach, while still sharing the same aesthetic principles.”

These include a neutral but refreshing material palette—pine, Portuguese marble, and MDF powder-coated a chic black—which creates space for the senses to direct themselves towards the wine itself. “We wanted something unrepeatable,” he says, “custom and purpose-built to provide a flexible, serene space for a small number of special customers.”

Tiago do Vale Gives Bottles Congress A Tasteful Makeover

These guests can access Bottles Recess through a sliding door within a sleek passageway from the shop or, in a more clever arrangement, via a hidden chunk which rotates out of the ample display shelving. A marble counter stands ready to offer nibbles and pours, while a central zone provides a long dining table and smaller tables with floating benching, all lined with pine; in back, armchairs sit near sidetables for tasting the family-owned company’s most prized varietals, both from the shop and from their own parent house.

It’s fitting, then, that bottles form the vast extent of the space’s decoration. Light is simple, soft, and diffuse. “This was about providing a place to be, isolated from the outer world,” do Vale says. “We simply wanted to offer an all-fulling aesthetic and sensorial experience. Just a celebration of wine, spirits, and their associated arts.” Cheers to that.