How Elusa Winery Used Tripleseat to Achieve Triple Its Annual Event Revenue

Locals and travelers alike visit Napa Valley’s Elusa Winery to experience its incredible wines through wine tastings, facility tours, and private events. Elusa Winery has grown its private event offerings – hosting wine dinners, receptions, and private tastings – for social and corporate clientele. Since implementing Tripleseat to streamline the event management process, Elusa Winery has tripled its annual private event revenue, cementing private events as a substantial part of its business.

About Elusa Winery

Elusa Winery, located in Calistoga, California, is a small boutique winery specializing in Cabernet Sauvignon. The working winery produces 2,500 cases per year across the 5-acre property. Elusa’s winemaker, Jonathan Walden, works closely with wine consultant and renowned winemaker Thomas Rivers Brown to showcase an incredible wine experience to those who visit the winery. Elusa Winery shares a property with the Four Seasons, making Elusa Winery a memorable part of the experience of guests visiting Napa Valley.

Elusa Winery boasts a variety of incredible spaces perfect for hosting intimate gatherings and larger private events — from the private Wine Library to the comfortable Vintner’s Lounge, the modern Tasting Salon, the dreamy Courtyard, and the newly built Tank Room. The possibilities are endless for making memories surrounded by the wine experience.

Elusa Winery has also built a loyal community of wine enthusiasts through its membership programs. These memberships include access to the limited wine releases that Elusa Winery produces each year and invitations to various member-exclusive events. These notable events include unique experiences at the winery, like private events during the wine harvest months, tours of the winery, and private wine tastings with Thomas Rivers Brown. 

Elusa Winery’s incredible wines give guests a true taste of Napa. We sat down with Johanna Holm, the Director of Marketing and Events at Elusa Winery, to discuss her experience using Tripleseat to manage the growing private events program at Elusa Winery.

Challenges Before Tripleseat

Before using Tripleseat, Elusa Winery used Excel spreadsheets to manage the few private events hosted at the winery. When Johanna was hired, she inherited this previous time-consuming method. She immediately recognized that she would need a more centralized method to manage all event activity with the new event goals Elusa Winery wanted to achieve. 

How Tripleseat Helps

Elusa Winery shares a property with the Four Seasons Napa Valley and works with its catering team for events. The Four Seasons menus have been imported into Tripleseat for all wine pairing and tasting experiences. Johanna feels confident that information is safe and secure within Tripleseat when working with partners. When preparing for an event, the Tripleseat BEO and floor plans make it easy for the Four Seasons team to spring into action with any wine experience upon arrival at Elusa Winery.

Regarding specific Tripleseat features, the BEO, as a whole, is a lifesaver for organizing event details for the internal team. Elusa Winery has a team of estate hosts who host wine tastings and help with private events. It is easy for Johanna to hand the estate host a printed Tripleseat BEO on the fly to execute the event.

Tripleseat also makes it easy for Elusa Winery to manage contacts and leads. The Tripleseat lead form lives on the Elusa Winery website as an easy place for interested parties to input their event inquiries. When Elusa Winery receives leads outside of a direct lead form – like an email or business card when networking – she can easily add these prospects as a contact in Tripleseat to follow up on a conversation or be ready with their information when the time is right.

Next in Elusa Winery’s arsenal is Tripleseat’s reporting capabilities. “I love the reporting features,” Johanna describes. “I produce a monthly pipeline for my boss, so I give her a monthly update about potential events with their statuses and other details – if they are a lead or a guaranteed event, if the deposit has been paid, and so on. All of this information comes right from my Tripleseat reports.” 

Johanna also describes how useful it is that Tripleseat reports can be customized. Site fees are an important source of revenue to Elusa Winery, especially being in a seasonal industry, so it is also useful to report on how much of any sale is from site fees vs wine sales. 

Regarding industry-specific needs, there are many important dates and timelines to remember regarding the winery business. Elusa Winery needs to account for when the harvest months will be and, therefore, when the Tank Room will be in use for harvest and unable to accommodate events. Certain member events and private event add-ons are also only held during the harvest months. Johanna notes all of these intricate details within Tripleseat to keep in mind when building out her calendar of event business. 

Tripleseat also improves the guest experience with clean and professional communication in the guest portal. The portal, with Elusa Winery’s logo and branding, provides clients access to all of the event details and documents they need in one place. If Elusa Winery needs to make any updates to the BEO, she can make them, which will reflect in real-time for the client to see. Regarding the professionalism of the guest portal, Johanna mentions, “It helps us give them [the clients] a sense of assurance that we are taking care of them, which we are!”

Learn How Tripleseat Can Help Your Winery

Results with Tripleseat 

Tripleseat has completely transformed the way Elusa Winery operates its events. Johanna jokes that when Elusa Winery implemented Tripleseat, it was basically like an assistant was hired for her. “That’s what it felt like – that someone was now keeping track of all the emails, someone was reminding me that an invoice was due or a deposit was needed…” she describes.

“It really changed our business. My bandwidth was wider, and I could take on more event business – so much so that I could eventually hire an Event Coordinator. We have literally gone from no events to events now being a really important revenue stream for the business,” Johanna says. 

Johanna also describes how easy it was for her new Event Coordinator to get started. She simply directed her to the Tripleseat calendar, which has all event information accessible so she could dive into her duties.

Since implementing Tripleseat, Elusa Winery has gone from hosting 1-2 events per month to 6-10 events per month. This increase in event volume also came with a significant increase in event revenue. Elusa Winery has been able to triple the annual event revenue brought into the business since implementing Tripleseat. Many wineries rely mostly on revenue from wine clubs and tastings, so this consistent event revenue has become extremely impactful for the business. 

As consumer patterns evolve, Tripleseat has also been able to help Elusa Winery accommodate these changes. Johanna mentions that she continues to see short lead times as a booking trend, and Tripleseat helps her immensely here. She is able to execute a wine dinner within a week’s notice – something that would have been extremely difficult to accommodate without Tripleseat.

Future Plans for Elusa Winery Using Tripleseat

Looking forward, Elusa Winery plans to continue sharing its incredible wines through even more social event business. Elusa Winery is constantly innovating the experiences it offers guests for private events and traditional winery visits through new programming – like its Caviar and Cabernet events, fall sunset vineyard strolls before harvest begins, and other exclusive membership events. Elusa Winery also plans to continue accommodating evolving customer needs, tapping into trending events like micro-weddings and continued education within experiences. 

Are you looking to host a memorable event in Napa Valley? Elusa Winery will make your dreams come true. 

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