The "Green Wine Bar" is an exclusive place to sip Monte Vibiano's wines in a quiet environment and taste Monte Vibiano's delicious frozen olive oil.
Surrounded by the hills of the Umbrian countryside, the "Green Wine Bar" is a refined marriage between nature and design created with recycled materials by Monte Carlo interior designer Maryam Fasola Bologna.
Maryam, who has worked in the past with Philippe Starck - one of the world's most famous designers - has built a long counter of chestnut wood and hundreds of unused corks that for years had been left in a corner at Monte Vibiano's historic wine cellar. Maryam started from such humble beginnings and gave the unused corks a new life: they are the main decorative elements of the counter and the frame around Monte Vibiano's "M" logo there. Dozen of corks also fill the upper part of the barriques (wooden barrels) placed around the counter.
In an effort to keep in line with the company's 'green' mission, Maryam used leftover materials from the cutting of Monte Vibiano woods to build the bar tables.
"My goal was to recycle existing wood and turn it into completely different objects. I had lots of fun transforming the barriques into something essential like bar tables", says Maryam.
The wall is decorated like a mosaic, with hundreds of round discs made of old, recycled wood. "The inspiration for the wall's design came to me from the miniatures in Persian art" explains the designer of Iranian origin.
The farm's fotovoltaic solar panels provide clean energy for the bar lights, making it completely energy-efficient; these are the same solar panels that help Monte Vibiano to be a zero greenhouse emissions farm, the first in Italy and one of the first in the world to produce a negative amount of greenhouse gases.
At the end of 2008 Monte Vibiano produced -700 tons of CO2, as certified by DNV, one of the world's leading certification bodies, which handed Monte Vibiano its first ISO 14064, attesting to the company's eco-sustainable efforts.
The "Green Wine Bar" is part of Monte Vibiano's eco-tours and a chance to relax after a visit of the estate on board electric vehicles.
For further information about Maryam Fasola Bologna' designs: www.maryam-shams.com
For more information on Monte Vibiano's green project: www.360green.it