It is a small building intended to store the wines grown on the estate that Eusebi Güell had in Garraf. The construction is formed by three orders of parabolic arches, which decrease as they move up, in a way that they form a pronounced gabled roof. The winery is located on the edge of the road, next to a large slope. The whole factory is of pumice stone masonry, with monolithic reinforcements at the corners, and boldly unloaded in some places, as at the entrance to the chapel on the upper level. Although its authorship has always been attributed to Francesc Berenguer, Gaudí's intervention in some details on a smaller scale is clear, such as the chimneys, the access door and the latticework. The intermediate level, which houses the administrator's apartment, connects with the street level and with the access, where the slope of the roof rises gently and forms a profile similar to a pagoda.
The Güell winery, which is a set of buildings (cellar, housing and chapel) is a modernist building located in the centre of Garraf, in the municipality of Sitges. The authorship and dating of the set have been the subject of controversy; while some attribute it to Francesc Berenguer i Mestres in the last decade of the 1800s, others say that Gaudí was its co-author.
Stone, brick and wrought iron were used for its construction. It is a work built in accordance with the aesthetic postulates of modernism, in its Gaudí aspect. Its characteristic elements are the parabolic arches, the use of wrought iron and exposed work, the compositional asymmetry and the use of the vocabulary of medieval architecture. The composition of the complex is organic, and the side wall and the roof are unified in a single triangular prism.
The set brings together forms that seem strange to each other, but thanks to the arches, a unified vision is achieved. In this set there are many of the identifying features of Gaudí's style. His mark is evident in the fireplaces in particular.
At one end of the complex there are the remains of a 15th century defense tower, located next to the original farmhouse.
The documentary references on this set are unclear and have been the subject of various hypotheses. There is no agreement between the authors on the specific period of construction of the cellar (Mackay, 1888; Bassegoda, 1900-1904) nor on the authorship of the project, generally attributed to Francesc Berenguer, but which J. Bassegoda values as the result of the collaboration between this architect and his teacher, Gaudí. In fact, the documentation kept in the Sitges Municipal Archive indicates that on 10-21-1889 the request was made to build a cellar at the back of the house on the estate owned by Eusebi Güell and Bacigalupi, located in the square of Garraf. At first, Eusebi Güell wanted to build a hunting lodge, but eventually rejected the option to build a winery there, as he had several wine farms in the Garraf area.
The authorisation was granted on 28-11-1889. In the aforementioned document, there is no reference to the architect who should be in charge of the work. On the other hand, Bassegoda mentions in a recent publication about Gaudí, the existence of a plan signed by Gaudí and presented to Sitges City Council in 1895, which corresponds to the built cellar.
