Pasquale Winery and Kurow brands

"We like quality websites, you like quality wine...lets talk."

Anyone and anything that comes from New Zealand’s Central Otago has a touch of magic. Pasquale Winery is no different. 

Pasquale is all about a brand that has different levels that sit beneath what you might see on your first encounter - a brand trait that’s reflected in their positioning statement ‘Not what it seems’. The original concept was to built two sites that looked visually different but built on the same template and driven by a common CMS engine. What we ended up building was building two quite functionally and visually different websites but still driven by the same engine.

It was quite a interesting project from an FM perspective. We initially collaborated with a consultant brand strategist on the Pasquale brand which helped to create the brand story, and everything from there on was done in house by FM where we lead website strategy, concept development, and design development through to deployment.

We quickly discovered that this ‘Not what it seems’ mantra extended deep within Pasquale - from the people behind the brand, to the way their wines are produced, the sorts of wines they produce (which are quite different wines for New Zealand), where the wine has come from in the middle of this really harsh Central Otago environment, right through to the visual elements of the brand. We tried to bring all of that through for Pasquale in their online brand experience.

This was very much a custom Kentico CMS with eCommerce built into it. The eCommerce component was an integrated eCommerce engine that stores and displays products from both websites. We created a common check-out process that pulls product from information and registration membership from two sites. Another thing that was interesting around this Pasquale project was how the j-query and Ajax navigation was used to make a really nice fluid experience for the site.

One of the specific challenges we faced was how we interpreted the brand - which was very visual - to work online, but then also how we created navigation and display elements that would reflect what Pasquale’s brand was all about. The other challenge was to make this quite sophisticated navigation system work across a multi browser environment. This required is to use lots of very customised carousel navigation - a good technical challenge for our team.

A common challenge for wine producers online is that it’s really hard to sell large volumes online as an individual wine producer. Being a niche brand that’s not as widely known, people are less likely to buy online unless they’ve experienced it first. The role that the website plays, and our ongoing relationship with Pasquale, is helping people understand the value of this very unique wine production area, while encouraging a level of engagement with the brand and product through different online channels.

Looking back, it was quite a clever development because we had two really distinctive websites that share things like shopping cart information, membership information and registrations, etc, with no compromise to the rich brand experience.