Hirsch Vineyards has produced award-winning pinot noir on the Sonoma coast for over 40 years. They have a reputation for uniquely complex wine that evokes old world sophistication. When the Hirsch family reached out to The Grass Agency in 2020, they were ready to codify and realign their brand around a tradition of excellence.
Merchandising Legacy
Jasmine Hirsch, the CEO and daughter of founder David Hirsch, had recently taken over the family business and was looking to update the brand’s visual style while paying respect to its rich heritage. Using original label illustrations, based on mythology and biodynamic farming, and the winery’s terroir as source material, we created a series of Thank You cards, t-shirts, and totes that are bold but refined, much like the estate’s signature wines. Since then, we’ve refreshed all of the brand’s tasting room materials and stationery, and created promotional graphics for its new releases.
From the time of its inception, Jasmine’s step mother, Marie Hirsch, has acted as the vineyard’s creative director. She devised a bold visual language with hand drawn illustrations and watercolor paintings that reflect the brand’s farming practices and reverence for old world winemaking. While Marie created a strong identity, Hirsch lacked a cohesive brand system and relied on dated, often distorted, files for its labels and marketing materials.
Designing a System for Scale
So in 2024 we set out to systemize and refine the vineyard’s identity and bring it into alignment with its reputation as one of the world’s most acclaimed makers of pinot noir. The resulting brand book codified the brands visual and verbal elements, included logos, fonts, secondary graphics, and color usage guidelines for print, web, and social; illustration and photography styles; brand voice and personality; and applications of the brand in use.
The three-month process included an extensive discovery period in which we toured the vineyards, interviewed key stakeholders, analyzed customer behavior, and dug into the family archives to unearth the true essence of the brand. The ultimate profile revealed a rustic but refined mountain winemaker that speaks with poetic ease and warm authority.
We also digitized and organized the vineyard’s visual assets and created workflows for social media to streamline the posting process. That project laid the groundwork for a major site redesign (due out summer 2025), and led to immediate engagement gains on social media.
