Website Case Study
Amazing French Wines
Once a wine merchant's site, now an independent guide that tours France's five great wine regions and opens its long reads in place.
At a Glance
Amazing French Wines began as a wine merchant's site; we redesigned it as a French wine information site. The single page tours Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, the Rhône Valley and the Loire Valley through five region overlays, then offers trending articles, expert guides, ten wines every enthusiast should know and journal pieces from its writers. Guides and journal articles open as long-form overlays, and The Insider newsletter and a contact form close the page.
- Project
- Website
- Sector
- Food and drink: French wine education
- Scope
- Single-page wine guide with long-form overlays
- Highlights
- Five region overlays, expert guides, ten key wines
- Live site
- AmazingFrenchWines.com
The Brief
A merchant's site exists to sell bottles; a guide has to teach. The redesign needed to turn the site into an independent French wine resource, organized by region, grape and story.
- Introduce France's five great wine regions, with their grapes and character, before anything else.
- Give expert guides and journal articles room for long reading without sending readers to separate pages.
- Single out ten wines every enthusiast should know.
- Close with The Insider newsletter and a contact form for readers who want more.
What We Designed
Beneath the eyebrow The Definitive Resource, the page opens with the headline Explore the World of French Wine in white, a line that travels from the sun-drenched slopes of Bordeaux to the chalk cellars of Champagne, and buttons to explore the regions or read the guides. Five numbered region cards follow, then trending articles with reading times, expert guides, the featured wines, the site's story, the journal, the newsletter and contact.
Playfair Display gives the headings the poise of a wine label, while Source Sans 3 keeps grape lists and tasting notes easy to read. We built the palette from an ivory ground, a slate blue-grey for text and an antique gold for buttons such as Subscribe, which reads as old-world without feeling stuffy. Each region card lists its signature grapes under the name, so the differences between regions show at a glance.
Five region overlays
Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, the Rhône and the Loire each open with appellations, grapes and signature wines.
Long-form guides
Expert guides and journal articles open as overlays, so in-depth reading never leaves the page.
Wines to know
A featured section names ten wines every enthusiast should know.
Trending articles
A short list of popular reads, each with its reading time, from wine labels to Bordeaux versus Burgundy.
How We Achieved It
Each of the five regions opens in its own overlay, where readers can explore its appellations, grape varieties and signature wines without leaving the page. The expert guides and journal articles work the same way, opening as long-form overlays rather than separate addresses, so a reader can move from a guide to buying Bordeaux Grand Cru to the latest journal piece in one sitting.
The footer links to practical resources: a vintage chart, a food pairing guide and wine storage tips. Five legal overlays cover privacy, terms of use, legal terms, accessibility and cookies, and email addresses are assembled by JavaScript so crawlers cannot scrape them. The Insider signup and the contact form are protected against spam with Google reCAPTCHA, and the copyright year updates itself.
Keep Exploring
More Case Studies
Want a Website Like This?
Let's talk about what your business needs, or start with a custom five-page website for $49 US a month.