SilverOakandBASIC®LaunchaDigitalPlatformfortheModernWineEnthusiast●
We've partnered with the leading wine producer to establish a contemporary digital flagship for its evolving brand.
We are pleased to unveil our latest work in partnership with Silver Oak, an iconic winemaker based in the heart of California’s wine country.
“Working closely with our partners at Silver Oak, we captured the essence of an elegant brand and an unforgettable visit with a timeless digital platform—one that celebrates rich tradition, family values, and innovative culture,” said BASIC® Group Creative Director Andrew Yanoscik.
“Silver Oak is a heritage brand that has also adapted to the modern digital needs of wine consumers,” added Silver Oak CMO Ian Leggat. “When it came time to take a 360-degree look at our digital experience, BASIC® stood out because of their broad experience across consumer lifestyle brands. No two BASIC® websites looked the same, yet they were all functional and beautiful.”
Our objective was to digitally translate the physical wine lifestyle, bring the brand story to life online, and streamline the conversion funnel across its suite of brands. With a refined design system as our foundation, we built a technical infrastructure on React and a managed WordPress instance on Kinsta for the front-end framework.
Along the way, we developed a content strategy and identified moments of differentiation, including pairing recommendations, curated recipes, a booking tool, new shopping utilities, and a landing page that showcases the sustainable craft of winemaking.
During the process, we navigated several underlying challenges:
- Utility vs. Beauty: One of our main challenges was finding the balance between function and form. We wanted to educate users about the brand and its signature Cabernet but do so in a way that conveyed the rich heritage of the storied wine producer. This can be seen throughout the site, from complementary serif and sans serif typefaces to clean, editorial layouts that allow for readability and scannability.
- Premium vs. Approachable: Wine culture is widely perceived with a certain exclusivity that has the propensity to turn some away. To avoid this, we oriented our digital strategy around connecting with customers—democratizing the brand but not at the expense of taste and elegance.
- Timeless vs. Modern: Silver Oak’s two winemaking facilities have opposing environments; one that captures a classical feel and the other leaning into more present-day nuances. As BASIC® Associate Design Director Hannah Purmort put it, “Our design system sought to give the brand a modern look and feel while honoring the past and timeless tradition. The team married elegance in typography, a minimal color palette, modern UX patterns, and subtle animations to achieve this.”
“As our nine-month partnership culminates in the launch of the new site, we’re proud to have had a hand in crafting such a robust narrative for one of the world’s leading wine producers,” said BASIC® CEO Matt Faulk. “Our contributions span everything from experience design to full-stack integration, and we couldn’t be more excited to see it all come to life.”
(Silver Oak)
For over 40 years, Silver Oak has produced delicious, distinctive, and food-friendly Cabernet Sauvignon wines from its Napa Valley and Alexander Valley wineries. The industry looks to Silver Oak as leading the cutting edge of sustainability and innovation in winemaking.
(BASIC®)
BASIC® is an experience design company that thrives at the crossroads of culture and technology. Combining human intuition with systematic thinking, its work in strategy, design, and digital transformation is recognized for challenging business convention alongside the world’s most forward-thinking brands.
