Berserkers Day 14 promises to be the biggest yet! There are a lot of great deals on offer today and we hope you can take advantage of as many as possible. So, we’ll try to make it easy. We’ll list the deals at the top, then provide some important details (like shipping) and at the end you’ll find backstory and more information about the wines.
The Deals
All of these deals are either BerserkerDay only or Berserkers first offers.
BerserkerDay Only Deals
You will only find these offers here today at BD14. (Well, unless you’re family or part of the harvest crew or a neighbor…you get the idea…)
2021 Pinot noir whole-berry Pet. Nat. - $25 / bottle - SOLD OUT
We’ve always made a bit of sparkling red wine on the side for ourselves. Last year we shared it with the Berserkers crew and we are doing it again this year. We didn’t make much – only 215 bottles total. We’ll drink a few dozen with friends and family. The rest are for you. No retail price listed, because it’s not a retail product…
2020 Willamette Cuvée with Limited-edition Labels - 3 pack $60
In case you weren’t paying attention: 2020 tried to kill us! First the Corona virus tried to get us and then the state of Oregon nearly burned to the ground. Since gallows-humor is the best humor, we’re offering two limited-edition labels in remembrance of the year 2020. You’ll never find these labels out in the wild. The 3 bottle set includes one each of the below labels and one “normal” 2020 labeled bottle.
Not to worry, the wine in each bottle is the same. No artificial smoke flavor, Ivermectin or Pfizer products added…
Berserkers First Deals
These are pre-release offerings. They will be released to the rest of the world sometime around Memorial Day. Berserkers get the first shot at them at previous-vintage pricing (in other words before we raise the price for the rest of the world…)
2020 Willamette Cuvée Pinot noir, ~335 cases - $20 / bottle (Retail $26)
2021 Willamette Blanc, Auxerrois, Pinot gris, Pinot noir white blend, ~200 cases - $15 / bottle (Retail $21)
2021 Havlin Auxerrois, ~150 cases - $20 / bottle (Retail $26)
Super Secret Surprise Deals
I will be posting library specials and large format bottlings at random times during the day. I don’t have many of either. So, watch this thread!
Also, is there a vintage or a vineyard you’d like to see? Lewman? Barrett Hill? 2013? No promises, but post up!
NOTE: Do not wait for these super secret surprise deals to appear to place your order on the other stuff above, because something might sell out while you are waiting. We will figure out shipping for these secret surprises after the fact.
The Details
Shipping - For the states listed below shipping is included with purchases of 12 bottles or more. For any quantity less than 12 bottles there is a flat fee of $20. We will ship the wines out at the end of April.
AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, NC, ND, NE, NH, NM, NV, NY, OH, OK, PA, SC, TN, TX, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY
For HI, AK and places outside of the USA, please contact me via email or private message here.
Ordering - Clicking on the link that says “Click HERE to buy me!” next to the product will take you to our web-store. Fill up your cart and checkout. It’s secure.
At midnight Friday we’ll be removing all BD14 offers from the web-store.
We’ve found that folks like to order a la carte. So, where it’s practical we’ve allowed that.
Backstory
In so many ways this picture is our back story.
“Take the wines seriously. Not us…”
Akiko Shiba (right) is our winemaker. Believe it or not she has an engineering degree in Viticulture and Enology from University of Geisenheim in Germany. I am the geek on the left with a finger in my nose. I drive the tractor.
The Wines
2021 Pinot noir whole-berry Pet-nat
We like to drink sparkling wine. So, we have always made a little sparkling on the side for our own consumption. Over the past couple of years we’ve slowly increased the amount we make, because every year we shared a little more with friends and family. It isn’t a lot of extra work to make 20 cases instead of 5 cases. So, that’s what we did. 20 cases is still a tiny production, but it’s just enough for us to share some with you.
The base wine is 100% Pinot noir and is an even mix from each of our vineyards. Each time we picked a block we’d add some whole berries to the “sparkling fermenter.” Whole berry fermentation allows us to get just the right amount of carbonic maceration without some of the common risks. It also allows us to keep the wine from becoming too “carbonicky.”
This wine is tart, bright, fruity and light. It has a solid tannin backbone and enough acidity to keep it from becoming nothing more than spiked grape soda. I really should write tasting notes for a living.
2020 Willamette Cuvée Pinot noir
Perhaps I will regret this later, but let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Man and nature tried their damnedest to burn Oregon to the ground in 2020. A lot of wineries opted not to make wines in 2020, because smoke taint was a problem for many.
It was a problem for us too, because the smoke was impossible to avoid. A lot of our 2020 wines will never see the light of day. We didn’t make any single vineyard bottlings, because in the end we didn’t have enough barrels of 2020 to do so. We changed some of our techniques in the cellar for 2020. You’ll notice the wine is more delicate – we did no punch downs at all, no pump-overs – only lightly turned the cap by hand. We racked some of the reds off their own lees very early and added the lees from our white barrels and puncheons. Other things were the same as every year – early pick and crop management to keep the pH low. Lots of time (relatively speaking) in barrel.
As barrel aging progressed and we approached the time to bottle we needed to make the decision: do we bottle or do we dump? We had sniffed, swished, gargled, hemmed, hawed and discussed for 18 months, but we were still uncertain. Is that smokey, bacony, maybe some barbecue? Is that skin-tannin or ash?
Finally, we sent the wines out to the lab. The results came back and we had passed with flying colors. Yes, there were some volatile compounds related to smoke-taint present, but they were well below detectable thresholds (by people). The best news was that there were no traces (below the detection capability of the equipment) of the more problematic bound compounds – the ones that show up as the wine ages.
We bottled the wines, but we still had doubts? Were there other compounds that cause smoke taint that weren’t part of the lab test? Did our 3 ounce sample really represent the 335 cases that we just bottled? What if? What if? What if?
Even in writing this I still have my doubts, however small! We have blind tasted these wines 1000 times. Offered them to pros and novices alike. People who know us point out that they are stylistically a little different from our past wines, but to date no one has tasted smoke.
So, I am 99.9% comfortable that this wine will meet our customers’ expectations, but the anxiety from the 0.1% is enormous. In spite of our doubts, we are offering the 2020 Willamette Cuvée proudly. The fruit from 2020 was stunning. The wines that resulted from our gentle handling in the cellar are delicate, bright and racy. The risk and the anxiety are worth it, because not releasing these wines would be waste of a great vintage.
335 Cases Produced, 13.5% ABV, 3.51 pH, no filtering, minimal SO2 at bottling
NOTE: the 2021 whites are still aging in tank, barrel and puncheon. Bottling is planned for March. After bottling we will let the wines rest for one month to recover from bottling-shock and then we will ship them.
2021 Willamette Blanc
This will be our white blend once we bottle it! It will be a blend of Auxerrois from neutral oak, acacia puncheon and stainless steel, Pinot gris, Pinot noir and Chardonnay all from neutral oak. I don’t know the final ratios, because we won’t do the final blend until March right before we bottle. If you have had this wine before, you will notice that we have a new varietal in there - Chardonnay!
We hope the Chard adds a little more depth and complexity, but the goal with the Will. Blanc is still to make a refreshing, well balanced and easily accessible white blend.
We’ll probably get about 200 cases depending on the final blend. ABV should be less than 12%, pH should be <3.2.
2021 Havlin Auxerrois
This blend will come mostly from our acacia puncheons. We will add a little from the stainless and neutral oak to get the balance just where Akiko wants it to be. As always this will be the serious older brother to the Willamette Blanc with more structure from time spent in the newer acacia puncheons.
We’ll probably get between 100 and 150 cases of this depending on the final blend. ABV and pH will be similar to the Will. Blanc.
