Starting the preparation for the Newbie portion of BerserkerDay 17 in a week or so, and the list is unsurprisingly long, as I mentioned here as well.
I’ll soon be contacting Monopole Crü to get volunteers, since I have roughly 32 hopefuls who want to be part of the Newbie offering. I’m guessing all those who volunteer will have assignments of two wineries (each winery sends a small sampling (2-4 bottles) to two Monopole Crü members (hopefully, preferably with their local tasting groups) for reviews and recommendations. Once I know who is recommended, the Committee will go over those who have made the cut, and we decide who gets in. To keep things managable, and not overwhelming (i.e. 125+ sellers) I’ll have to cut some from prior BerserkerDay(s) to make room - those who didn’t do well in multiple BerserkerDays, never participate outside the event, things like that. Really curating the best collection of sellers we can, peppering Newbies with (dare I say) ‘Oldies’ in the mix. I’m going to be mindful of concentrations of wine regions this year, as well. We’ll have more Santa Barbara than prior years, we’ll be pickier for any potential Oregon Newbie since we have so many - things like that.
I was tempted to run another NewbiePalooza but after seeing how things went with Vindependence Days (surprisingly well!) we clearly have ‘room’ for two sales a year, so I will likely bring back NewbiePalooza for next year, and use that as the vetting for inclusion into BerserkerDay, which also has the advantage of giving these Newbies a calmer, more controllable trial into the madness that will come if they make it to the big show.
Requests for Monopole Crü volunteers will be coming out soon, so join soon if you have interest in that (plus the deals that only Monopole Crü gets on BerserkerDay and throughout the year) as I tend to give preference for 1) tasting groups vs. individuals and 2) those in Monopole Crü who haven’t yet done a tasting, since everybody likes free stuff, and tasting wine (here, anyway), and analyzing it 
