Captivating Winery Websites For Your Inspiration
From the Napa Wineries in California to the vineyards of Australia and France, the beautiful designs of these wine maker’s websites embody the spirit of the vine. Trends for winery websites have been leaning towards a dynamic Flash introduction, animation and beautiful graphics, which would give the best representation of the products for the target market.
While sites have gone in the direction of a more modern and contemporary approach with fresh and sleek designs, others have taken the more traditional route by captivating their users with the bold earthy Tuscan colors and impressive graphics and art.
There is much to consider when designing a site for a wine maker. Use your creativity to promote the wine and winery, so that the quality portrayed encourages users to inquire how to contact, where and how to buy, and even obtain information on upcoming events.
Good design ≠ Good visual design
Unfortunately, winery sites strongly focus on the visual design, while best usability practices are often ignored. For instance, some web-sites do not offer a search functionality and use hardly readable content (and the size of the text can not be increased, because the text is embedded into a Flash-animation). Besides, since many sites are Flash-based, it’s also impossible to bookmark a specific page, although (in general) it can be achieved in Flash).
When good visual design fails: the font-size of the text on Dancing Bull Wines can not be scaled up; for many users it may be way too small for comfortable reading.
A good design is not a good visual design; good design is rather a balanced combination of good visual design and usability, resulting in the positive user experience. In our experience, too many sites appear to be very complex and hard to navigate, because in the trade-off between visual design and usability designers often decide against the latter one.
Winery Websites For Your Inspiration
With that in mind, we share with you 40 captivating wine maker’s websites displaying some examples how it can be a rewarding experience – please notice that these sites often can be improved in terms of usability.
Bonus: Wine & Beer Bottle Design Tutorials
Wine bottles make exceptional design elements. Following are a few “how to create wine bottle tutorials” – we have added them to this article, since they would add value to this article.
Realistic Decorated Wine Bottle Illustration
Create a Realistic Wine Bottle Illustration From Scratch
Photoshop Glass Bottle Technique
Illustrating a Cool Glass of Beer in Photoshop
Beverage Ad Enhancer in Photoshop
Design Beer Glass and Bottle in Photoshop
Abdel Faiz
May 3rd, 2009 6:42 amvery intersting, thanks :)
Michael Chacon
May 3rd, 2009 6:46 amCool, thanks!
Thomas
May 3rd, 2009 7:30 amJust finnished a site for a winery. About to go live!
Sergey Kapustin
May 3rd, 2009 7:40 amOne more wine-related website with award winning design
winst0n
May 3rd, 2009 7:43 amwow what a pointless article.
Why bang on about usability in a visual design showcase?
Erik M Kubitschek
May 3rd, 2009 8:01 amI am currently working on a winebar site (domacinwinebar.com). Seeking some creative ideas and feedback. (wordpress/flash).
Ray
May 3rd, 2009 8:01 amThe Image and the link of “Create a Realistic Wine Bottle Illustration From Scratch” and “Realistic Decorated Wine Bottle Illustration” are mismatch. They should be swapped.
(SM) thanks, fixed!
saurabh shah
May 3rd, 2009 8:48 amnice one …
Mazhar Khan
May 3rd, 2009 8:52 amits a nice article awesome!
Shariart
May 3rd, 2009 9:06 amAs a commercial artist, I really enjoyed and appreciate the creativity that wnet into these sites. Great post!
Magnus
May 3rd, 2009 9:26 amnice one … but sorry to say that the google rss feed is no longer working
(SM) what do you mean? We just checked it and it seems to work just fine.
Michael Davis
May 3rd, 2009 9:29 amTake it from a designer (web & print) and major wine geek. The better the site…the worse the wine.
The best wines come from small producers in rural France/Italy. It sells itself without SEO, Flash or AJAX involved. Not a Twitterer in the bunch.
Cheers,
Michael
Joel Salisbury
September 4th, 2010 1:23 pmDo you actually believe this? I think some wines become very popular and then can thusly afford to beef up their marketing efforts. It’s not always vice versa.
Craig
May 3rd, 2009 9:30 amThese are sadly, almost all the same: dull, drab, and conformist.
Sad. Really is. There are a lot better examples of progressive interaction design than these (and yes, I am talking about the global wine, spirits, and beverage industry)
(SM) please share a couple of these examples with us, Craig!
Shariart
May 3rd, 2009 9:51 amOops! Sorry about the typo. “went” not “wnet”. :-)
Diego Ghiggi
May 3rd, 2009 9:55 amGreat sites, but the De Saint Gall and The Little Penguin are wrong with the reflection.
Cheers.
David
May 3rd, 2009 10:31 amThat Nokia ad up top is obnoxious. Way to go Smashing. This is why I deleted your RSS and stopped visiting.
Manuel
May 3rd, 2009 11:12 amBlack estate has a really cool site!
Mau
May 3rd, 2009 11:48 amThere’s a lot of value on the wine labels and the cork, they give the identity to the bottle, and the vineyard, but it seems that’s not taken into account in the design of those websites, since most of them are pretty ugly. (except for a few examples).
Anrkist
May 3rd, 2009 2:30 pmWine sites really cater to a select group (people who REALLY enjoy wine.) For the rest of us, they are pretty simple, 5 page sites with not much else.
Leif Miltenberger
May 3rd, 2009 2:52 pmThanks for featuring one of our designs (the Rocky Creek Winery site)! I’ve really enjoyed looking through the other sites listed here – quite a few that I hadn’t seen before.
Cheers!
al
May 3rd, 2009 4:25 pma lot of them seem to be “all show no trousers”.
i have a distinct dislike of flash too which precludes me from liking most of those sites!
Ray
May 3rd, 2009 5:47 pmMost commenters here are either design snobs and flash police, mumbling about ‘ugliness’ and disliking usage of flash. Grow up people. Keep up the good work Smagzine.
Tom
May 3rd, 2009 7:18 pmWhile the use of flash and other fancy animation is considered by many to be necessary, I abhor it. There is absolutely no need for ANY website to have any flash on the landing page — XYZ.com — especially without a clear way to bypass that page. The landing page for any business website should be plain, simple and informative. As plain as google, but more informative.
Wineries, for example, should include a product listing, direct or CSS and information about the location of the winery, including the GPS coordinates. I like manyof my fellow wine lovers like to visit wineries, and since consumer GPS devices resolve street address using ‘rubber-band’ technology having the GPS coordinates there in a handy cut-and-paste format is a good thing for those wineries that sell direct to the public.
Ray
May 3rd, 2009 7:45 pmhi Leif @no 27
apart from saying it ‘better’, They’re actually…. some boring looking sites.
sylph
May 3rd, 2009 10:44 pmi am unsure how hatten wines got a spot here
Marc Shake
May 3rd, 2009 11:07 pmQuite inspiring and beautiful, yet so senseless IMHO. Wine is the last product I would research on Internet…
Campelo
May 4th, 2009 1:38 amjeppe
May 4th, 2009 1:43 amThanks for the list!
Here’s an inspiring digital magazine for swedish liquour/wine brand Vin & Sprit (now owned by Pernod Ricard)…in swedish:
Jesse
May 4th, 2009 6:41 amInteresting designs. It seems winery’s are either going Elegant & Sophisticated or Playful in their overall marketing campaigns. I for one enjoy all wines (mainly reds) from the 5$ bottles at the grocery store to the 1000$ Rothchild’s; it’s nice to see vineyards are marketing to all audiences in the modern world. Good stuff Smashing!
az
May 4th, 2009 1:11 pmThanks for the search, it’s great for me, i’m a young webdesigner french and i’ll go to create my first wine website for my school, it’s beautiful description!
Thanks a lot from france!
Wayne
May 4th, 2009 3:57 pmNice gallery. Given I have worked on several major label wine sites of late this was a good bit of inspiration.
And I fail to see why some people are so negative against these kind of articles – I have been in this industry for over 19 years and still find some joy in appreciating others work.
Sam
May 4th, 2009 3:58 pmI like that Ozzie website that lists all wine tour operators down under wine tours down under.com.au I think
Jojobel
May 6th, 2009 10:42 am90% of these sites are tacky, over-the-top, themey drivel. Sorry to be such a snob, but maybe SM should focus more on quality over quantity.
Frog’s Leap? Really?
Stella
May 6th, 2009 11:46 amBelieve it or not, Virginia has been moving up in the wine world – when I moved here in 1989, there were about 60 wineries. The number is up around 175 now.
Here are a few lovely and simple sites – no flash at all:
http://www.chathamvineyards.net/
http://www.cardinalpointwinery.com/
http://www.mountfair.com/
It do think “the better the site, the worse the wine” is a generalization, but is something to think about. Smaller wineries are usually focused on making the wine – and making it the best it can be given their particular location/resources. Marketing is way down on the list unless there is a lot of money to be tossed about.
susan kime
May 7th, 2009 3:05 pmAnother excellent label design is Redemption. Each label is produced by a California graphic designer. The Pinot wine is fabulous also
cs
May 7th, 2009 9:39 pmAnd another wine related website can be found here
Tina
May 8th, 2009 2:51 amgr8 article..
Philippe
May 12th, 2009 2:02 amSharon,
Thanks for this article very useful to find inspiration.
If you have time I’d be happy you review our websites : see Vinternet Portfolio (vinternet is a web agency specialized in the wine business in France since 1995).
We put a lot of efforts in trying to find the right approach, content & services and
design for the website according to client’s profil, objectifs and budget also (;-)).
Trying not to be over the top nore bellow.
Always learn a lot on each new project
I’m looking forward to reading you and see which one’s your fav.
Scott
May 15th, 2009 5:48 amWhat are we inspiring ‘Mystery Meat Navigation’? These look like sites ‘designed for designers’ not users.
Pedroos
May 16th, 2009 7:04 am“wow what a pointless article.
Why bang on about usability in a visual design showcase?”
- This is the most stupid comment i’ve heard in years. Every design must have usability to sell. Why have a website if no one reaches it or if it has a 90% bounce rate. Only poor webdesigners think its impossible to have a beautiful yet clean and usable site.
Tihomir
May 17th, 2009 1:14 pmwow, so nice designs that I’m totally desperate will I ever be able to create such a nice site :(
Vladimir
May 28th, 2010 1:07 pmBeautiful Designs of Websites, but I’m still against alcohol and alcoholics, I do NOT support them and never will, and I recommend to all of you whoever drinks alcohol to STOP as soon as Possible before you hurt someone around you and your life.
But yeah, the graphics are Smashingly amazing :)
daxxter
August 25th, 2010 4:03 pmSeriously… Yellow Tail? Pepi? 3 Blind Moose? Moët Chandon? Big House? The Little Penguin? Do you REALLY think these can be called “captivating” or even inspirational?? If anything, some of these quoted sites tell us what NOT to do!
James
February 8th, 2011 10:22 pmHere’s another nice one
http://www.devils-lair.com/