Upper Reach Winery

Upper Reach is a family-owned winery on the banks of the Swan River in Baskerville, in the heart of the Swan Valley. Derek and Laura bought a run-down, half-planted vineyard in 1996, and nearly 30 years on the family still grows, makes, ages and bottles every wine on the estate. Around the wine sits a whole destination: a cellar door, a vineyard restaurant, the TreeHouse Pizza Bar, summer Twilight Concerts, winery tours and wine classes, and a 1907 workers cottage that guests can book for a stay among the vines.

That is a lot for one website to carry, and the previous site had grown one notice at a time. Below a grid of buttons, the home page had become a long run of centred text: opening hours, holiday closures, a 2021 award and guest quotes, all competing for attention. Wine sales, the wine club, restaurant bookings and concert tickets lived in different corners, and it was hard for a visitor to picture a day at Upper Reach, let alone plan one.

We rebuilt the site in WordPress and Beaver Builder around the idea in the new headline: wine grown where you can see it. The home page opens on an aerial shot of the estate at sunset and leads straight into four clear paths, Dine, Shop, Experience and Stay. From there the family story, functions, bestselling wines, the Cellar Club and real Google reviews each get their own space, so the page reads like a stroll around the property rather than a noticeboard.

The design is warm and editorial. A cream and olive palette drawn from the vineyard, Vollkorn serif headings paired with clean Quicksand body type, and generous photography of the food, the people and the vines give the site the relaxed, welcoming feel of the cellar door itself. A custom header with a simple menu keeps every part of the estate within easy reach on any device.

Behind the scenes, the site ties together the platforms the business already runs on. The online cellar door and the Cellar Club run on Commerce7, embedded so the wine range, cart, member login and club sign-up all sit inside the Upper Reach site. Restaurant bookings go through NowBookIt, with a booking popup available from anywhere on the site. The Events Calendar powers What’s On, and the Twilight Concerts page sets out each night’s lineup alongside the four ticket options, from Dinner & Show through to a Season Pass.

We also gave the family’s knowledge a proper home. Vintage Reports are published as their own entries, a year-by-year record of the Swan Valley growing seasons written straight from the vineyard. The Cellar Club page explains the four ways to join, the Cottage has its own page with midweek packages, a Swan Valley map helps visitors plan their day, and an accessibility page with photos of the site and the ATIC accessibility report lets guests judge for themselves before they arrive.

The result is a website that feels like an afternoon at Upper Reach: relaxed, generous and rooted in the vineyard, with everything a visitor needs to book, buy or plan their visit close at hand.