Software That Has Evolved Alongside a Historic Napa Producer

Larkmead Vineyards sits at the narrowest point of Napa Valley, less than a mile between the Mayacamas and Vaca mountain ranges, with the Napa River and Selby Creek running through it and seven distinct soil types beneath.

Every grape in every bottle is grown on that land, adjacent to the winery. Kate’s parents, Larry and Polly Solari, bought it in 1948. Kate grew up here. Now her three children own it, and a fifth generation was just born.

Erinn Maloney came to Larkmead in 2008, first on Saturdays in the tasting room, then full-time as the winery's first marketing hire in 2010. She’s been running direct-to-consumer operations through Offset for over a decade.

When she and the team first sat down with Offset, Larkmead was running the wine club model everyone ran in the 1990s: two shipments a year and a waiting list for reserve wines. Over the years, Offset’s softwareevolved alongside Larkmead's sales models.

“They've always been very creative and very responsive. They’re not static at all. Even though we've been around for so long, the wine world is changing every year. They've done a really good job of remaining fluid through all that.”

Larkmead runs custom clubs and allocations at the same time.

“Being able to concurrently run a club batch while the allocation is live is so powerful, especially when you're trying to predict cash flow and sales velocity. Having both makes it so much easier to be nimble in a very dynamic market.”

“Offset has to work for everyone — the tasting room host and the controller presenting to the board. Revenue from tasting fees, visitor information, how that flows — that's one of Offset's greatest strengths.”

The Offset Point of Sale iOS app changed how the tasting room operates. Staff process orders on a phone or iPad, tap to pay on personal or business devices, and handle offsite events without paper forms or delayed entry. Commissions are pooled and trackable.

“If you just need to ring three bottles, done. If you need to go back and look at ten years of sales, you can do that too.”

Order editing is one of the features Erinn relies on most. During a club run, a customer can add to an existing order without a refund, a reprocess, or multiple back-and-forth emails. One order number, fulfilled once.

Larkmead farms organically. Vineyard manager Nabor Camarena has been with the estate for nearly two decades. Winemaker Avery Heelan has led the cellar since 2019. A wine typically ages two to three years before it reaches a customer.

Erinn draws a straight line from that to the moment of sale.

“We spare no expense planting the vineyard, caring for it, waiting five years for a block to mature. We spare no expense in the cellar. Why would you not do the same when it comes to how customers interact with the brand and purchase the wine?”

Larkmead’s longest-tenured members are coming up on their 20th year. Erinn has known some of them since before she was married, before she had a house, before she had kids.

“I'm fiercely protective of that relationship. Just as we are a family winery, our members are part of that family.”

With a customer base spanning allocation, club, and tasting room visitors, segmentation matters. Offset connects to Campaign Monitor for email and automated journeys, and to RedChirp for SMS. A tasting room staff member can see whether a customer opened an event invitation, whether they bought a ticket, and ring them up for a point-of-sale order in the same conversation.

“We've realized how different cohorts prefer to be communicated with. It’s very different when you have a lot of customer records — that's a pretty diverse group of people.”

Larkmead has been telling its story across three centuries. When the Offset Brand Studio was engaged to design Larkmead’s website and help guide storytelling, there was a lot of ground to cover — the Wappo people who first lived here, the Salmina family, Lily Hitchcock Coit, the Solaris, the research block series. Offset’s brand studio team didn't hesitate.

“They just dove in with two feet and figured out the best way to tell our story.”

Getting that right matters to Erinn in a way that goes beyond brand management.

“It’s authenticity. The way we present a product on the website, the way we describe it, the level of detail — that has to be mirrored in how people experience it on site. There would be some dissonance if the people we worked with to tell our story were completely different from the people we work with to run commerce. It’s the same group of people.”

“The thing I always tell people to look for is the responsiveness and accuracy of customer service. Within three minutes, you have someone getting back to you. And if it’s a bigger issue, it’s even faster. The people at Offset understand the struggles we’re facing. If something isn’t fully solvable, they take notes — ‘How does this impact your business? How could we improve this?’ To feel acknowledged and listened to as a client is really powerful.”

For a family that has tended the same land for 75 years, that kind of reliability isn't a nice-to-have.