It is the key challenge of modern wine marketing and website design – how to efficiently manage multiple wine brands to take advantage of economies of scale, while retaining the boutique aesthetic of each individual brand. For Ste Michelle Wine Estates, the goal was to create a “string of pearls”, with technology as the connective tissue, but allowing each of their brands to have its own appeal.
Ste. Michelle Wine Estates is the Northwest’s oldest and most acclaimed producer of premium wines, and is among the Top 10 U.S. wine companies. The company’s portfolio includes Chateau Ste. Michelle, Columbia Crest, Red Diamond, Domaine Ste. Michelle, Snoqualmie, Northstar, Col Solare, and Spring Valley Vineyard in Washington; Erath in Oregon; and Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, Conn Creek, and Villa Mt. Eden in Napa.
The Ste Michelle Wine Estates multi-brand platform sets a new industry standard for how a diversified wine group can create a comprehensive digital ecosystem of independently branded winery websites. At the heart of the system is a content management and database application that permits ALL of the ensuing brand sites (web, mobile, and trade) to be driven from a central admin area in a user interface so simple that a novice marketing resource can manage it.
From this central resource, FINE has now rolled out and integrated 13 completely distinct and unique brand websites. The design and development of these winery websites was not encumbered by restrictive data requirements that so often reduce wine sites to mere recurring templates. Instead, in keeping with the key to the string of pearls strategy, these sites each receive a full exploration and celebration of their own brand.
Each site also contains its own roster of feature functionality, from a trade site that provides detailed product assets through web or phone, to brand sites that provide event schedules or even wine blending tools.
After two years of continuous winery website design and development, the rollout of Ste Michelle Wine Estates proceeds with mobile site versions, iPad tasting room kiosks, promotional sites, and a more robust push into search engine optimization, social media, and other digital marketing efforts that will continue to enhance traffic to these world-class destinations.