stuff I built in the wine world

El Celler Català was my online Catalan wine shop from 1998-2007 and where I learnt most of what is important. Even websites that don't sell things require the same clarity of purpose as an e-commerce site, and I try to bring that experience to all my work.

The Wine Trio are three wine agents working to bring exciting Italian wineries to the attention of the international market. Endlessly extendible, it is built in php to be completely maintained by the client.

Parxet is actually four sites in one: Marqués de Alella, Tionio and Basagoiti are all part of the same group. We used an identical design for all four, with different colour schemes to match each cellar.

Raim500 is the web of a local farmers association (all of whom have vineyards over 500m altitude) dedicated to raising the profile of their region. I was particularly pleased with the google maps-database integration to trace every single vineyard.

Albet i Noya is the leading producer of organic wine in Spain. As a web project, they had a great story to tell. I did their original site in 2002, and this 2006 upgrade based on the concept of their label designer, Gerard Medina.

Over the next 5 years Domaine Lignères will be recognised as producing some of the greatest wines in the world. You heard it here first. This cellar had a great story that I was keen to tell. Slightly indulgent home page, but it tells a story too.

Fabrizio Iuli is a great friend who makes wonderful wine in Piemonte, northern Italy. He recently had his entire range of labels redesigned, and I've always wanted to make a black site! I recently added a direct sales facility.

Eugenio Bocchino is another great winemaker in Piemonte working with Nebbiolo and Barbera. At the top of an interesting range of wines he makes a stunning Barolo. A relatively simple site designed for clarity and ease of use.

Having done Albet i Noya's site and Alta Alella's, it was fairly logical to do Mas Igneus' site too (it's owned by those two cellars). Like most of my recent work, incorporates a blog as the news page. Can I get them to keep it up to date?

Château Sainte Barbe is my first French client... a wonderful Bordeaux château that has been painstakingly restored. Also my first use of Flash (which I'd been resisting) but which I think is justified here to be able to show the transformation of the estate.

Alta Alella is a small winery just north of Barcelona, run by one of Spain's leading winemakers, Josep Maria Pujol-Busquets. The site is loosely based around their labels, although there was a bit of a challenge reconciling two brands under one site.

Celler Puig-Romeu is a small project in inland Penedès making some interesting, relatively high altitude wines. With no corporate design to speak of to base it around, the photography takes on additional importance.

not only wine...

John le Carré Official Author's Site. This was a huge thrill to do, because I'm a fan. I'd probably have done it for a couple of signed copies... What more can I say?

Profile Matters is a PR consultancy / training service. The site is still a bit short on imagery at launch, but otherwise clean and functional. More php as it will be a very dynamic, frequently updated site.

Anacrusa is another music agent that grew out of the Batall project. Another php/user updatable project that also includes embedded audio and video in the different artists pages. They had a nice clean logo and colours I love to work with...

Batall is a local management / production company in the music world. Designed to be completely updateable by the staff, making it my first 100% php project. There's a slight tradeoff losing a little graphic beauty for a whole lot of functionality, but it's worth it.

David Newman's sculpture site was a welcome break from wine - and a nice change to do something minimalist and clean letting the works speak for themselves - even if cutting sculptures out of their backgrounds is not the easiest job!

Music on the Edge : Built in January 2000, and revamped a number of times thereafter, the site focuses on five modern jazz bands. It includes Audio clips to hear samples of each of the featured artists: Addressed primarily to festival programmers and agents.

Ensemble Q. I originally built it years ago with loads of dhtml effects and such like. I was young! Now it is simple and functional! Addressed to followers of the quintet and music club programmers. Includes Audio clips of their latest CD.