Revolutionizing the winetasting experience: Dive into the Wente Winemaker Studio app

The Opportunity

Our digital strategy team led an exhaustive discovery process to learn the opportunities for engaging visitors with an interactive kiosk using an iPad. We scoped and outlined a web app that would behave like a native iPad app, powered by a secure content management system to help the client team refresh the content regularly. The feel had to be elegant, immersive, and sharable by friends using the iPads at fixed stations throughout the space.

Our content strategy considered the audiences, the content creators, content goals, workflow process and publishing processes. We created an overall content outline and production plan to keep the internal team on schedule as they wrote the trivia and other historical content. The Wente team wanted the app to be fun, so we made sure game content was front and center.

Overview

Wente Vineyards came to Daylight with a vision underway: they were just weeks away from opening California’s first “Winemakers’ Studio”: an immersive vineyard experience that would be part vintner’s laboratory, part blending room and part wine museum. To complement this unique physical experience, Wente asked Daylight to create an interactive iPad experience for guests in the studio, helping them learn about wine and become more deeply engaged in their studio visit.

Photography That Speaks

To design the app, we dug through archives of company images, wine history and photographs, maps and wine labels, and took more shots of the interior of the physical space so we could create a digital realm that matched. Our goal was to make a lightweight, effortless tablet experience that felt as elegant and inviting as being in the actual Winemakers Studio.

Custom Game Creation

Because a major goal of the project was to engage guests in their visit to the studio, we provided smart content like the wine menu, class listings, events and membership info. Then to take app users “beyond the studio,” we added wine history, maps of regions, tasting guides and interactive wine trivia games to play with friends. Working with the client, the Daylight interaction design team mapped out game flows to determine how each game would work. We then created new interfaces to let the client create multiple types of trivia questions, including complex game rules and visual feedback to help players see their status and scores throughout the game.

We designed and developed wine education games that maintained the high level of sophistication that’s seen in the rest of the app.

App Development

To give the client greater content control and security while preserving the “app” feel, we designed the WMS site in HTML5 using special javascript treatments so that the web app behaves like a native app. At the same time, we made sure the experience is available exclusively to people who are physically in the Winemakers Studio. Finally, we deployed all content in the FUEL content management system where the client can manage game content, wine information, events and updates without assistance.