Wine Cellar Door:
Rebuilding a wine tourism guide for the world
Problem
Wine Cellar Door was built as a guide to the vineyards of England and Wales, and it did that job well for more than a decade. Everything about it assumed one country, though, from its .co.uk address to the way its listings and regions were structured. To become a directory of winery visits worldwide, it needed a name that could travel and a structure that could hold any country. Visitors needed facts they could trust before a long drive, and wineries needed a way to keep those facts current without writing in to ask. Visitors now plan trips through search engines and AI assistants as well as websites, so every listing also had to be something those tools could read and cite.
Background
Elisabeth Else and Ian Hardwick, friends who met working on tourism projects at VisitBritain, founded Wine Cellar Door in 2012 as a guide to the vineyards of England and Wales that welcome visitors. They visited well over half of those vineyards themselves. Every winery could be listed for free, so the guide gave a complete picture rather than a paid-for selection. In 2018 it won Best Promotional Body at the Drinks International Wine Tourism Challenge. 5forests acquired Wine Cellar Door in April 2026 and set it a new goal: to become the world’s largest winery visitation directory, while keeping the founders’ principle that a winery’s facts are free to list.
Solution
We began with the brand: a new logo and palette, and a move to winecellardoor.com so the name speaks to visitors anywhere. Then we rebuilt the site from the ground up on a new technology stack, making it super fast on any device. The UK-only structure became a worldwide one: each country sets its own currency, time zone and seasons, and region and country hubs give visitors and search engines a way in.
Visitors browse by region or by what they want from the day, such as dogs welcome or walk-ins, in a list or on the map. Every listing carries the structured data and FAQs that search engines and AI assistants read.
Wineries can now claim their listing from a link, without creating an account, and run it themselves in a self-service console.
“The wine industry’s challenges don’t happen in isolation. The producer who struggles to convert website visitors into club members is facing the same problem as the region that can’t attract younger visitors — a gap between what wine offers and how effectively it communicates that offer. Wine Cellar Door is where we close that gap.”
Polly Hammond, Founder and CEO of 5forests
Mapping the world of wine, one country at a time
Wine Cellar Door serves visitors deciding where to go and the wineries hoping they will come, and both now reach it through search engines and AI assistants. We rebuilt each part of the site with one of them in mind.
Before and after
