Chateau Montelena began its rich history in 1882 when Alfred Tubbs purchased 254 acres of rugged land just two miles north of Calistoga at the base of Mount Saint Helena. After a long period of disuse following Prohibition, Montelena's renaissance began in 1972 when the winery and vineyard land were purchased by the Barrett family. Today, under the Barretts' ownership and direction, Chateau Montelena produces internationally acclaimed wines, with its 1973 Chardonnay, winner of the Paris Tasting, setting the standard. The knowledge that their internet presence should represent the world class standards they'd achieved motivated Chateau Montelena to seek out the help of Freerun Technologies.

Initially, Freerun took on the challenge of developing Montelena's extensive site map and put together recommendations for achieving their goal of developing a clean, easy-to-use site that would be useful and interesting to both consumers and trade members, while having the ability to be maintained in house. The first phase of the project was to create a look and feel that would highlight the present day beauty of the Chateau while keeping in mind the history behind it. Sepia tones were chosen with the main focus being a black and white snapshot of the Chateau in its early years with a subtle flash animation bringing the photo almost imperceptibly to current day. With visuals well under way, the structure of the site would begin phase 2.

The winery's desire for a self-maintainable site prompted Freerun to recommend Unidox, a product of the Unifide family. Unidox allows clients to maintain their websites in house without the need for HTML trained personnel. Chateau Montelena now has the ability to update the site (which is approx. 95% Unidox) in house, 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Other key tools Freerun has developed for Montelena include an interactive timeline of Montelena's history and an interactive map that allows surfers to drill down to specific vineyard plots to get more info. Tours can also be requested online using the tour availability form. And finally, trade members can download items such as shelf talkers, winemaker's notes, and press releases as well as make a media kit request.

With the approaching launch of the new website, Chateau Montelena needed a way to reach out to their client base for the unveiling. In Phase 3, Freerun introduced Uniblast to Montelena. Uniblast, another product of Freerun's Unifide family has allowed Montelena to compose visually appealing email campaigns as well as manage their email lists which get automatically populated from their website's online sign up form. They can also track things such as how many opens, click throughs, and bounces each campaign produces. Several campaigns have been successfully sent out and have received positive results since Montelena began using the Uniblast application.

Freerun is proud to have had the opportunity to work with Chateau Montelena and look forward to new and challenging projects in the future. To view the Chateau Montelena website, visit www.chateaumontelena.com.