MacRostie Winery and Vineyards is one of the Sonoma Coast’s defining wineries, strongly positioned for the future with rising star winemaker Heidi Bridenhagen building on founder Steve MacRostie’s legacy. The MacRostie Estate House, which opened in 2015, marked a new chapter for the winery and launched the winery into the DTC world. Known for providing a world-class hospitality experience, the property hosts over 40,000 guests annually. With an amazing winemaker and authentic commitments to diversity, sustainability, and community, the team enlisted Carbonate’s help to take stock of the brand, its competitors and its raving fans to craft a clearer, concise and more compelling story.

To help define a clear and precise brand story and develop key messaging that drives a meaningful connection to MacRostie, Carbonate examined existing brand assets and performance, spoke to groups of stakeholders and customers, and performed a media audit to better understand how MacRostie is currently perceived. We also reviewed the visual and verbal identities of their defined competitive set to identify where the opportunities exist to deepen the connection. MacRostie’s updated “brand DNA” became the roadmap, which guided a strategy for a creative refresh and brand-building partnerships.

As an extension of this brand strategy work, Carbonate also revised MacRostie’s visual identity with an updated logo, color palette, typography family, and supporting graphic elements. Additionally, our team provided detailed direction for a visually distinct and compelling photography style that would connect meaningfully with the refreshed brand strategy and DTC communication. Our team collaborated with MacRostie’s website design and development team, providing copywriting and brand support, to ensure that the soon-to-be-launched updated website met the refined visual and verbal identity. We continue to support the MacRostie team on a project basis, having recently named a new vineyard and developed additional print collateral.