A VineSpring Story

Perched in the Santa Maria Valley an hour north of Santa Barbara and just 16 miles from the coast, Presqu’ile’s tasting room has sweeping views of vineyards and the Pacific Ocean. While this family-owned winery’s focus is crafting delicious cool-climate wines, their hospitality is at the forefront of their appeal. The staff at Presqu’ile are always seeking ways to make the customer experience unforgettable.

Presqu’ile, which means “almost an island or peninsula” in French, planted their first vines in 2008. They opened their production facility and tasting room to the public in 2013. Since then, they have been providing their guests and members with a unique experience while they sip wines, tour caves, and devour meals made with ingredients from their 1-acre garden. Every detail of the guest’s experience is considered and fine-tuned.

“We have an amazing facility here at Presqui’le and spectacular wines. We do everything we can to create a high level of service and a personalized environment where guests can explore, take in the views, learn about our wine, and eat food from our garden.” - Brian Shuey, Presqu’ile Wine Club Manager

If you visit Presqu’ile today, you’ll have the option to explore their estate through a variety of experiences, like a tour by horseback paired with a tasting. It’s easy to see why their guests want to bottle up their experience, become a member, and get whisked back to the rolling hills in Santa Maria as they sip on their wines at home.

The Challenge

As Presqu’ile grew and established their wine club, they invested in an all-in-one software platform to help manage their clubs, eCommerce, POS, email marketing, website, and more. While the all-in-one system is an improvement over a manual, disjointed process done on spreadsheets, it had its limitations.

They wanted to be able to match their high standards in every area of their business. The all-in-one platform was falling flat and didn’t allow them to customize their website or offer a smooth transaction process for in-person payments.

Removing the barriers From Payments

To provide an elevated service, Presqu’ile delivers most of its service tableside, especially post-pandemic. The winery used the POS that came with their all-in-one platform. Payments for their tableside service involved many back-and-forth interactions, manual card entries, and limited wireless bandwidth capabilities on their expansive property. The clunky payment process caused bottlenecks in service, especially on busy weekends, and negatively affected the overall experience.

“On our busiest days, our iPads would slow and then crash. The frustration from our staff was palpable. We felt like our issues with payments were taking away from the hospitality and service level we were providing.” - Brian Shuey

While looking for a solution, Presqu’ile staff noticed the ease with which businesses of all types used Square. From coffee shops to retailers, and other wineries, Square’s simple card readers and seamless checkout process were in stark contrast to Presqu’ile’s current payment system. Square payments had minimal steps, took just seconds from start to finish, could be done on portable devices online or offline, and were easy for both staff and customers to use. Presqu’ile made it a top priority to find a platform that could easily integrate with Square.

A Website as Personal as Their Experience

Presqu’ile’s website was designed and hosted within their all-in-one platform. While it was convenient in the beginning, it no longer served their needs and was difficult to edit.

“Our website was clunky, difficult to customize, and did not provide a positive representation of the winery.” - Brian Shuey

Websites are the digital version of a winery’s tasting room and are often a customer’s first impression. Presqu’ile wanted their site to be a true reflection of their brand and provide an excellent virtual experience that mirrored what it is like to visit their property.

Presqu’ile narrowed in on WordPress, a world-leading website platform and hosting service with countless theme options to fit every type of business imaginable. WordPress allowed Presqu’ile limitless freedom in design and functionality while enabling them to integrate with other industry-leading platforms and easily edit on the backend. They knew whatever solution they came up with would need to work well with WordPress.

The Solution

Now that Presqu’ile knew they were looking for a solution that addressed their issues with payments and integrated with WordPress sites, they discovered VineSpring. As a best-in-class solution, VineSpring focuses on wine club management and eCommerce while providing integrations with other best-in-class platforms, like Square and WordPress, and other tools that help craft producers customize their online experiences and create tight communities.

VineSpring has been a Square partner for years and took notice when Square enhanced its offerings in 2020 to further help businesses during the pandemic. Now VineSpring is working on incorporating additional Square features into their integration beyond payments. Learn more about the VineSpring and Square partnership.

By using both Square and VineSpring, Presqu’ile staff can now use Square portable devices and chip readers to collect payments on or offline from anywhere on their property without fear of crashing the system. The Square and VineSpring integration allows important information to be shared across platforms. With the VineSpring and Square integration, staff can identify if a customer is a club member, have club member discounts auto-apply to in-person orders, see how long a customer has been with them, and know that customer’s lifetime value all from within the Square POS.

“VineSpring went to the top of our list because of their dedication to Square. We knew we needed a POS system that wouldn’t fail us on a busy Saturday and needed a platform that would complement Square payments. VineSpring was the answer. Now, our payment process is tremendously better.” - Brian Shuey

For enhanced website design and functionality, VineSpring offers a Software Developer’s Kit (SDK), API, and webhooks. Learn more about wine business technology here.

Presqu’ile worked with a local web designer and developer, Leo Basica, to create their new website. Leo was able to use the SDK and API to easily incorporate design and functionality into Presqui’le’s website.

“I’ve used VineSpring’s SDK for several websites and find it very easy to use and helpful. The newest version of the SDK, which I used for Presqu’ile, is incredibly organized and intuitive.” - Leo Basica, Owner of Leo Basica Design

The finished product is a beautiful website that clearly represents Presqu’ile’s offerings, is easy to navigate, and simple to manage and update.

To further Presqu’ile’s level of high-end service, since onboarding to VineSpring they have been able to support custom clubs. Club members are able to log in to update their profiles and select their custom offerings.

“With VineSpring custom clubs, what used to take upwards of 1424-plus hours now takes me only two hours.” - Brian Shuey

With the new website, VineSpring, and Square onboard, Presqu’ile saw their biggest month in two and a half years in May 2021. Even with record numbers, the service went smoothly with the new systems in place. Both staff and customers alike were able to take in the gorgeous landscape and enjoy the company and wine without any snags in their impeccable hospitality.

Learn more about VineSpring and how it could work for your craft business.

VineSpring clients have a lot to say.