Palmaz Winery Fermentation Dome

At 54 feet (16.5 m) high and 75 feet (23 m) wide, the Palmaz Winery fermentation dome is one of the world’s largest wine caves. It is covered by sloping and relatively shallow ground—the cover over the dome averages just 45 feet (13.7 m). The ground is also variably soft and hard, characterized as lahar, which consists of fresh andesite boulders in a matrix of highly weathered rhyolite.

Jacobs Associates services included geotechnical characterization, construction sequencing, and structural design. We addressed the challenging ground conditions with a design that incorporated aspects of the New Austrian Tunneling Method (NATM). Ground support for the dome consisted of 16-foot-long (4.9 m) rock dowels and a shotcrete lining reinforced with welded wire fabric. An instrumentation and monitoring program was implemented to measure ground and tunnel lining displacements during construction. Multiple point borehole extensometers were installed around and within the dome.

In another area of this extensive, underground winery, Jacobs Associates designed the ground support for a 160 x 60 foot (49 x 18 m) car museum/banquet hall. This structure is also under shallow ground cover, and support consisted of a complex network of double arches of steel frames and ribs, which enabled an open hall with only column supports.

The project completed in 2007, and the winery opened its doors to the public in October of that year.