Case Study · eCommerce & Retail
Du Sol Wines
A custom direct-to-consumer wine store for a boutique Stellenbosch estate, built from the ground up rather than assembled from an off-the-shelf template.
Client
Du Sol Wines
Lourensford Wine Estate, Somerset West,
Stellenbosch.
Industry
eCommerce & Retail (Wine)
What we did
eCommerce Development, Logistics Integration,
Payment Gateway Integration, ERP Implementation
Client testimonial
Solly Moeng
Founder, Du Sol Wines
The Challenge
Selling wine online is not a plug-in
Du Sol Wines is a boutique estate in Stellenbosch, founded by Solly Moeng, producing handcrafted wines from a single vineyard on decomposed granite soils. To sell directly to consumers online, the estate needed more than a shop button. It needed age-gate verification for compliance, a considered way to present a small premium range, subscriptions for harvest releases, a wholesale path for trade buyers, and a stockist locator for in-person sales. Holding all of that together in an off-the-shelf template would have meant compromise at every step.
Like many boutique producers, Du Sol needed to sell directly to customers rather than depend on distributors and cellar-door visits alone. That called for a store built around a small, premium range and South African compliance from the outset, not a generic template stretched to fit.
Our Approach
Understand the business first, choose the technology second
We started with how Du Sol actually sells, who buys, and what compliance and brand standards the store had to meet. From that we designed the customer journey, built the storefront and backend alongside the estate, and stayed involved through launch. The result is a store the team can run, not a template they have to fight.
What We Built
A bespoke store, end to end
Custom storefront
A wine catalogue, product pages, cart and checkout built around a small, premium range rather than a generic template.
Age-gate compliance
Age verification on entry and responsible-drinking messaging throughout, as required for selling alcohol online in South Africa.
Subscriptions and updates
Email capture for harvest updates and new-release announcements, turning first-time visitors into a returning audience.
Wholesale enquiries
A dedicated path for trade, restaurant and stockist buyers to enquire about bulk and wholesale orders.
Find Du Sol
A stockist and venue locator so customers can find where to buy and taste Du Sol in person.
Cellar Notes
A winemaker blog for dispatches from the vineyard, giving the brand a voice and the site fresh, ownable content.
Payment gateway integration
Stripe and Paystack integrated at checkout for secure local and international card payments.
Logistics integration
Delivery and courier integration so orders move from checkout to dispatch without manual re-entry.
ERP implementation
ERP integration linking orders, inventory, and finance to the back-office so the store and operations stay in sync.
Custom backend
Behind the storefront sits a Medusa v2 headless commerce backend managing products, orders and content, deployed on managed cloud infrastructure, so the estate owns its platform rather than renting a hosted template’s limits and fees.
The Technology
A custom build, not a template
The store is a bespoke build on a modern headless-commerce stack, chosen for control, performance, and room to grow rather than the limits of a hosted template.
- Storefront
- Next.js 15 (App Router), React, and TypeScript, styled with Tailwind CSS
- Commerce engine
- Medusa v2, a headless commerce backend, on a PostgreSQL database
- Payments
- Stripe and Paystack
- Hosting
- Vercel for the storefront, Render for the commerce backend
Outcomes
The result
Du Sol Wines now runs a live, direct-to-consumer store it owns end to end, selling its full single-estate range online with age-gate compliance, subscriptions, and a wholesale channel built in.
Live
Direct-to-consumer store
3
Single-estate wines online
Custom
Headless-commerce build
Want a store like this?
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