While it's still fresh...planning/ideas/comments on BerserkerDay IX (2018)

I’m BARELY out of the weeds from BerserkerDay VIII, then caught a head cold on Sunday to help me focus ever-so-well, but it’s time to chat about NEXT BerserkerDay, which will be IX (the 9th)…and after that, amazingly, the 10th! BerserkerDay X, or, as I’ll call it, BDX, which makes BerserkerDay IX BDIX! Sweet, we have acronyms! #bdix

My notes, comments, and I ask for yours as well, of course.

First of all, I think the Newbie threads were universally a HUGE hit. I definitely plan to do that next year. Because we covered Freshmen and Sophomores this year, next will be JUST Freshmen, probably, just the ‘first year’ offers, and again, just wineries.

I think the group launches were good, better than the one-every-5-minutes option, as well as the ‘free-for-all’ thereafter, so it captures both a more organized option, highlighting launch groups, but also the madness of ‘regular’ threads which get bumped based on popularity. To me, that provided something for everybody, but invite your feedback nonetheless.

I’d like to see about getting group buys together - wineries from a certain region getting together to make BerserkerDay Sampler Pack Cases, which ship together. That would be tremendous, but the issue is likely to be financial - how do the wineries divide the money, who collects it, etc? We could have several - even many of them - but would have to figure out logistics carefully.

Timing seemed to work pretty well to me - 7:30 - 11:30 am PST, with auctions noon to 8pm, groups launched in 30 minute increments.

I turned down several last minute folks on BerserkerDay to keep things clean, and limited the number to some extent, so we aren’t overwhelmed with offers, thus making folks lose out easily if they don’t do everything right.

That’s about it for me…feel free to give me your thoughts/suggestions either here (preferred, so we can all discuss) or privately via PM

The newbie threads were great, but without stifling creativity, I wonder if there can be more form to the descriptions. I found myself in some cases reading lots only to reach the end and wonder “what kind of wines do they make?” Then having to go to their website to find out.
Maybe having a suggested outline that they follow to address the pertinent details.

Great job as usual, Todd. Thanks for making it happen!!!

As someone brand new to both the forum and BD, I would actually love to see the newbie thread expanded to all participants (or perhaps a separate, parallel thread for returning participants).

Many of the repeats might be familiar to long time Berserkers, but for those of us who come in new to the forum even the long time BD participants are new to us.

Side note, on the whole I really enjoyed BD and am very happy to have discovered this forum and look forward to see all it has to offer over the next year!

Congrats on the successful Berserker Day!!!

I am also curious as to how successful it was for some of the newbies.

Great event again. Can you tell us any kind of report out, e.g., volume, $, comparison to past years, etc, as relevant?

I like the idea of grouped offers, but yes, bet it would be a headache.

And FWIW, I wore my pin throughout.

No data - I took data one year in SOME detail, less detail the year after - it’s very difficult to get data from wineries as it is truly private information (sales numbers, etc) and for sure not ALL are going to share it. The best year of feedback i received was about 70% reply rate, but I have no proof of whether or not the numbers are correct.

I know we have a wide array of results - from only a couple offers sold to WELL over 100 offers sold by other participants (not bottles…offers). I know we are well over $200k a year sold, as a few I hear from easily put the number over $100k in just a handful of participants (quite a few were in the $15-20k range for the event), and this year was no exception. If I could get accurate numbers, I’d venture $300k is fairly accurate a number, which is crazy. As with traffic and registered members, I expect each BerserkerDay is bigger than the one before. Some do well every year, some do better some years than others, a few don’t have much luck, but I need to help them work on their offers and strategies to see what can be done.

Great job Todd (and the rest of the crew)!!

My only comment/wish is there are several winemakers and winery reps that frequently contribute to the overall Berserker discourse, yet are absent on the big day. How can we as a community encourage their participation knowing they likely don’t participate either because they:

A. Have no wine to sell (aka sold out well in advance of BD…futures offer maybe)
B. Berserkerday doesn’t fit their business model (sell back vintages?)
C. Are too busy performing manual punch downs and what not (just leave the keys to cellar and we can let ourselves in [snort.gif] )

I’m sure the community could put together a list of wineries we’d love to see not only from the prime areas of CA/OR/WA but also those from the Finger Lakes, VA, Etc.

Again, great work on the newbies post as well as the block reveals, much appreciated!

Agreed that the newbie threads and group launches were excellent, definitely well done Todd.

Group/syndicated sales would be very cool, especially since shipping prices will just continue to increase and that might encourage folks (myself included) to try a few extra new things with one shipping cost. I’m sure that if for example 3 wineries were to set up a shared case, they could work out what each of their share of the total price is ahead of time, and divide the total sales at the end of the day. Paypal or some other payment processor might even have a function to automatically dole out percentages, who knows.

Local group buys could be good to, i.e. wineries shipping several orders to one place to save on cost & effort. Could either be to a particular buyer who’s collecting for several people, or maybe even a wine shop or storage facility. Would require the same ‘trust’ factor, but I’ve split BD purchases in the past with members I hadn’t previously interacted with and haven’t had issues.

Thanks again Todd!

Re-posting my response to Brig in the other thread to capture re social media: I mentioned this last year to Todd and had intended to do mentions on FB and Twitter like I did in previous years, but I had to step away for a few hours right in the midst of things. If we had a master list of FB and Twitter handles in order of release times I/we could get the word out as they went live.

Also, as a FYI to the newer folks, I usually do “research” by visiting wines from the previous year’s purchases and also reviewing the offers to get an idea of what types of offers they may make. I also always have a list of “try next year” wineries that I just didn’t get to and they go to the top of the buy list for the next BD. This can also help you do research on their websites, as it is rare for a participant to not come back once they’ve tasted the madness for themselves.

Thanks to Todd, Brig and the rest of the gang for another great BD!

I thought the group launches and pinned threads were great, I thought the newbie thread was even better, and I really think the idea of group offerings would be excellent (admittedly difficult to pull off unless someone purchased and assembled these packs ahead of time). The idea some have had for having a thread for returning offers is great also. I particularly liked the newbie offers that hyperlinked their newbie intro thread in their offer. This allows a winery to have a much more concise/clean offer page and leave the lengthy descriptions on the other thread to read if you wish.

I am glad you didn’t group the offers into different threads and I found the setup for this year to be quite easy to navigate. I think the number of offers could easily be expanded with this same setup and maintain reasonable ordered chaos.

One thing I would like to have improved was to keep the launch schedule available for subscribers. I didn’t even know it existed until someone mentioned it after it had been closed up on the 26th. Then on the 27th, I could access it anymore.

Thanks to everyone who makes BD possible and thank you for inviting our thoughts.

I think we should ensure sellers who sell the same item don’t bash other sellers…
(i.e gabriel glass). That was rather distasteful. just my 2c.

Pinned threads - great! really saved the headache of not knowing what’s happening when b/c threads kept moving around.

love it over all… i finally ordered some Velveta sardines, and look forward to them!

For sellers - including free shipping is HUGE incentive. unless you’re an established veteran of course.

If Nola is offering whole hams again I will need more advanced notice to convince the Mrs, about getting one.

Ok, perhaps I should keep my mouth shut, but why should I start now [wow.gif] ? I love what I do.

EMH had a very successful BerserkerDay. Not equaling last year (ok, that was completely nuts), but a good pair of days.

Some thoughts…Oh Merrill, why do you do this? (Someone on another wine board said, “Well, Merrill is Merrill.” Okay…

I became a Berserker Business this year because some folks emailed me asking if they could purchase the day before. I also had new ordering software, which I thought was better-suited for a softer opening. And, sadly, I did not have my gorgeous daughter here to enjoy (and work) with me.

So, I am going to say some of stats are:

–perhaps 50% new customers. That is nice. Perhaps they will purchase new releases and will replace those who have enough wine, died (yes, it happens), decided they did not like my wine’s profile, whatever.

–my “collector’s corner” did well. That was a bottle each of 2006, 2007, 2008 for $320. Not cheap, but if you like the Black Cat, man, those are extremely good wines. It is a treat for me (and my friends) when I pull the cork on those babies.

–maybe 5% women? Maybe? But this falls in line with my general sales.

–Overlap. 2 of the 3 wines from last year’s BerserkerDay were in this year’s offering. Now, after this year, if I participate next year, the offer will be offered in some creative packages. Driven by inventory. So maybe some high end verticals of my Special Selections, or a mix of older vintages. Magnums? I don’t know. I only produce what I grow (100% Cabernet - Cab is still king!) so you are not going to see any low prices in the teens, 20s, or below $65/bottle). I will equal release prices, but for my ever-faithful mailing list (who receive wines at the lowest price I ever offer), I will not undersell them. They are my bread and butter.

Shut up, Merrill.

I thought it was great, as usual, and the 10 at a time rollout worked great.
My only comments are from the selfish consumer perspective, and that is that I got California Pinot fatigue after awhile, and had a hard differentiating between producers I didn’t know.
But that’s a me problem.
I’d also love to see more Washington/Oregon/NY/imports, but BD could be nothing but California pinot and I’d still tune in eagerly every year.
Thanks for all that put effort into it.

And your cat looks like my newly brought in feral, Peter Benjamin. Shhh…don’t tell anyone I have a yellow cat. My other 2, of course, are BLACK. Petey was someone’s cat in the past. Indications are feral at first, then had a home, then someone dumped him at my place.

As a newbie to both WB (I did lurk a bit in the past) and BD, I think it was great and participated in 7 offers. As noted above, it did feel very heavily Cali Pinot, which I’m personally fine with, but understand that others might not be. (And reserving comment for what this might say about the industry! Is Cali Pinot what people want, or is there a glut that has to be blown out at a discount like this?)

The UC Davis cellar was very cool and a highlight for me. I know it’s asking a lot, but attracting something so interesting again would be great.

I think that the back vintages that some producers were offering was also very cool, and probably helps them as well. There are other wines that I bought that I won’t touch (and likely won’t re-purchase) until I taste them in 2-3 years, but, e.g., once the Arcadian Classics settle for a bit after delivery, I’ll try them and be more likely to reorder soon.

I think having profiles on all the wineries and their wines, not just the newbies, would be great. Not sure if the other retailers should or would want to be included.

As a subscriber, I was a tad disappointed that only half the wines were available to purchase “the day before”. Think that benefit was diluted too much, likely will opt out next year.

Enjoyed the event and the whirlwind, as always.

as a newbie both to wine and the forum/many of the wineries, I think my first Berserker Day where I had a chance to purchase was a really fun experience. It’s just a little overwhelming, with so many offers, so many wineries, so many clashing opinions…

A couple thoughts, from a newbie’s perspective:

-I do agree that having grouped offers (e.g., Pinots from McMinnville, OR, or Humboldt County Pinots, or Santa Barbara Pinots, etc.) would be helpful in getting more wineries involved, and exposing more people to these wineries, if it could work logistically – and I could see how that’s challenging, obviously. There were times when I really wanted to try offerings from wineries that got a lot of praise on the board, but I had already ordered from other wineries within the same varietal/region and felt limited by budget/drinking capacity haha.

-I think it’s hard for newbie wineries to get established, but from the perspective of a wine drinker/customer only, and not wine maker, I have to say that if push came to shove with a limited purchasing capacity, I tended to favor wineries where I recognized the name from posts on the board in other contexts. I truly value how Wine Berserkers is a community of people who love wine, and how I can learn so much from people with different perspectives, some with truly deep knowledge in different areas (Burgundy, Bordeaux, German wines, Champagne, Italians, Tom Hill and California lol). That’s especially so with wine makers, who provide a crucial perspective on this board. For someone with a limited exposure to wine in general, the Berserker Day wines are all new to me, and if I have to choose, I’ll go with the wine that at least I can learn more about through the board, and help continue that journey for me and others via this dialogue. This also applied to other things like the wine glasses and food purveyors, for example – I appreciated seeing people like Chris Freemott contribute to this community as a whole, with sustained involvement over time.