The New Twisted Oak Winery Web Site: A Review

Jeff "El Jefe" Stai and his crew at Twisted Oak Winery in Murphys, CA have lauched a brand-new Web site.  Jeff is one of the most tech-savvy winery owners, so I wanted to take a close look at his new site.

First of all, let me say that I really like the new Twisted Oak site.  As far as navigation is concerned, they're hit all the right buttons, with their usual "twisted" flair:

• Get Twisted Wines (buy wine)
• The Twisted Few (wine club) 
• Goings On (event calendar) 
• Twists (blog-like content: pictures, recipes, etc still to come - the reason why is worth reading) 
• Find Us (directions) 
• Media / Trade (media and trade information) 
• Contact Us 

Although they have more than the basic navigation options (Buy Wine, Give Wine, About Us, Contact Us, Media/Trade), it's kept to a manageable seven primary navigation links.  Four of the seven items have drop down menus, which add navigational complexity in a manageable fashion as long as some restraint is applied.  The footer navigation recaps the buy, club, media/trade and contact items, and adds "Shipping" and "Boring Legal Crap" (again, completely consistent with their brand identity).

Buying wine is a breeze - the shopping cart and checkout takes very little effort (I didn't place an order, but I went throug the entire process except for the final click to place my order).  You don't have to create an account to buy anything, and there's a cool little drop-down "Shopping Sack" at the top of each page so you can see what you've got.  If you're not sure how good your winery's e-commerce function is, Twisted Oak is a very good benchmark for a nearly frictionless process.

I do wish that more effective use was being made of the home page.  There was no featured wine with a strong call to action.  And I wish the home page fit on a single screen - it may seem like a needless constraint, but it also forces the designer to reduce the home page to essentials.  At least there were no gratuitous vineyard pictures...

A winery Web site is more than the home page, of course, but the internal pages maintain the same navigation, content, and right-column appearance, so that the site (including the e-commerce system) has a consistent look and feel.  The page layout makes good use of white space to avoid a cramped feeling that may prevent people from reading.

I'd like to single out the copywriting on the whole site for recognition.  It's actually interesting to read each page, unlike many sites filled with marketing speak.  I presume Jeff was personally involved, as the feel of the copy is consistent with the Twisted ethos.  The site speaks with a single, authentically twisted voice.

The right column on each page shows visually interesting graphical elements for the wine club, newsletter signup, the Twisted Oak blog (hosted at a separate URL,  www.elbloggotorcido.com), and facility rental.  I'm not sure that all of these are worth such graphical emphasis (images call attention to particular elements on a page), but I was glad to see the newsletter signup  on each page.  If nothing else, you'd like a visitor to provide their e-mail address so you can continue the conversation once they leave the site.

One small gripe: I'd rather see a condensed list of wines (as shown under Get Twisted Wines / All the Vino), as opposed to the more spread-out listings used.  The four-up presentation of wines, while uncrowded, makes it hard to get the full scope of what's for sale without clicking through multiple pages.  The full product page for each wine is nicely done, although moving the "Shipping" information up near the "Add to Sack" button would be useful on these pages.

Jeff hasn't posted an announcement about the new site on the Twisted Oak blog yet. He may well have Tweeted about it, but since he has made over 11,000 tweets, I couldn't easily tell.

You can use The Wayback Machine to see previous versions of the Twisted Oak site.  The new design was done by Vin | 65.  According to the Internet Archive, Twisted Oak was previously an Inertia Beverages client.

I hope that Jeff will eventually post something (on his own blog, or here in a comment) that describes the process Twisted Oak went through in deciding to make a change, and what happened along the way from old site to new.  What were the goals for the new site, were they achieved, and what are his future plans?  As someone with a terrific winery Web site, I think it would be instructive for others contemplating a site redesign.

Take a look at the new site, and leave a comment with your thoughts.

Comments

[rick]

Nice site. It does one other thing that many people overlook - it loads fast. Study after study have illustrated that speed is a feature and this loads up nicely.

I don't have an issue with the home page being longer than one screen, partially because monitors are larger and higher res these days, but mostly because it's more important to convey the right information than hit an artificial above the fold goal.People will scroll if you give them reason to and not mind it - the above the fold issue has always been driven more by the desire for clicks on ads than anything.

Finally, nice calls to action (Join the wine club, signup for the newsletter).

[jason zajonc]

Awesome work at Vin65! Nice job on the new site!

[Andrew Kamphuis]

Mike,

Thanks for profiling one of our new websites and for your feedback. It's always good to read professional opinion on the work we do. It's great working with Jeff at Twisted Oak as he pushes us to raise the bar.

On the points you make about the homepage and side navigation - I'm sure the they will be tested and tweaked over time. And Jeff will probably keep his homepage up to date.

Like Rick above, I'm not opposed to the scroll (on my 19" monitors, there is no vertical scroll other than the footer links). There are so many monitor resolutions, it's a tough balancing act.

Thanks.

[el jefe]

hi Mike - I plan to do that post, but it will be sometime next week. thanks for the great feedback!! - j