Winery/Winemaker Monthly Features - MAY WINERIES POSTED

[Todd F r e n c h (Online)]

Based on feedback, and the idea presented (actually several times) about doing a BerserkerDay type event each month, featuring one winery (or maybe two) and opening up discussions with the winemakers, encouraging quick buying and shipping to have tasting notes come out during the month, and general interaction with the community throughout.

We'd be essentially combining the 'Special Guest' and BerserkerDay features into one, and I think it might be a really unique concept that could revolutionize wine buying in a very small way.

Thoughts??

[Stephen Gelber]

Sounds good.

[Terence T-Bone Livingston]

The Power of WB never ceases to amaze me! Well done Frenchie!

This could be UGE.

[Jim Salvito]

Love the idea, with the cautiously optimistic note that it won't be used by wineries/winemakers as a dumping opportunity. I guess if they did that though, there might be some adverse commentary from the WB community, I would venture to guess...

[e chin]

Sounds like a great idea for both sides. Hopefully this will include Old World also?

[Todd F r e n c h (Online)]

Love the idea, with the cautiously optimistic note that it won't be used by wineries/winemakers as a dumping opportunity. I guess if they did that though, there might be some adverse commentary from the WB community, I would venture to guess...

We're not going to be a dumping ground - we'll be carefully choosing them, and giving preference to those who already participate in the community. A dumping ground 'sale' makes no sense, as the winemakers will have to sit around and talk with us, and it's probably MUCH better to take some conversation to a new level, talk about winemaking styles, get positive and negative feedback, and really explore more about the winebuying experience, as a community at large.

Ed, yeah, I hope some old world too!!

[Chad Richardson]

I like it; though my credit card whimpered.

[Todd F r e n c h (Online)]

I like it; though my credit card whimpered.

This would be less, um, 'impactful' than BerserkerDay, as it will be spread out over the course of a year. One, two, maybe three featured wineries per month...

[David K o l i n (Online)]

Nice idea, Todd

[Andrew Hall]

A call-and-response of offers and TNs sounds great.

How about expanding it a little further though? On some level, you should have access to mine data like which wines/wineries generate the most tasting notes AND follow-ups to those tasting notes in the Berserker community. Use that data to drive invitations to winemakers/wineries, have discussions and then produce follow-up offers. I'd love to see the relationships be dynamic in that way. I also think that has a good chance to spreading the net out to people who are not very attenuated to social media and gives them a tangible reason to get involved.

A.

[Todd F r e n c h (Online)]

A call-and-response of offers and TNs sounds great.

How about expanding it a little further though? On some level, you should have access to mine data like which wines/wineries generate the most tasting notes AND follow-ups to those tasting notes in the Berserker community. Use that data to drive invitations to winemakers/wineries, have discussions and then produce follow-up offers. I'd love to see the relationships be dynamic in that way. I also think that has a good chance to spreading the net out to people who are not very attenuated to social media and gives them a tangible reason to get involved.

A.

Your latter point is most definitely one I'm wanting to integrate - it will easily showcase the benefit of social media as a vehicle, now in a new way (assuming it works out!)

As to your former point, won't that data be easily seen? Everybody can see how many threads, how many responses, how many tasting notes are posted, as it is a public forum, and the number are posted next to the threads in the list. Just wondering what you mean about mining the data...

[Andrew Hall]

As to your former point, won't that data be easily seen? Everybody can see how many threads, how many responses, how many tasting notes are posted, as it is a public forum, and the number are posted next to the threads in the list. Just wondering what you mean about mining the data...

One can eyeball the data, but that is often very misleading. Been down that road a few times with work stuff.

It would be interesting, at a easy first pass level, to collect aggregate numbers like N people views notes on Chat X's wine and n people responded. (I get that it would not be perfect - TNs buried in bulk tastings, threads derail, etc.) Digging in deeper and requiring a fair amount of work would be to see more accurate numbers and get associated word tags w/ TNs. eg, "Over 75% of tasters say your wine 'needs time.' Do you have library releases?" Pretty much all of this kind of analysis would require a direct data interface, not the board interface.

A.

[Todd F r e n c h (Online)]

As to your former point, won't that data be easily seen? Everybody can see how many threads, how many responses, how many tasting notes are posted, as it is a public forum, and the number are posted next to the threads in the list. Just wondering what you mean about mining the data...

One can eyeball the data, but that is often very misleading. Been down that road a few times with work stuff.

It would be interesting, at a easy first pass level, to collect aggregate numbers like N people views notes on Chat X's wine and n people responded. (I get that it would not be perfect - TNs buried in bulk tastings, threads derail, etc.) Digging in deeper and requiring a fair amount of work would be to see more accurate numbers and get associated word tags w/ TNs. eg, "Over 75% of tasters say your wine 'needs time.' Do you have library releases?" Pretty much all of this kind of analysis would require a direct data interface, not the board interface.

A.

Sounds great...know of any data tools that could collect and parse such data?

[e chin]

A little too technical for me, but is it possible to interface this with CT. Andrew is that what you mean and could that even work logistically? Todd I am sure you thought this out, just my $0.01. Have to save that penny for this will happen I'm sure.

[Todd F r e n c h (Online)]

A little too technical for me, but is it possible to interface this with CT. Andrew is that what you mean and could that even work logistically? Todd I am sure you thought this out, just my $0.01. Have to save that penny for this will happen I'm sure.

We'll see if Eric's interested, but that's a good idea, for sure - we can compile the notes here via CT, perhaps. I'm sure Eric has a way to parse that data more easily than I.

[Rick Gregory]

I like the idea.

I don't see an easy way to get clean data if you want to restrict it to TNs. CT would help, but a) You can't force everyone to do notes there, so you'd still have to deal with the people who wrote notes here, b) other people who didn't participate in the WB offering could also write notes during the relevant time period, c) they might not publish notes here (of course Eric could provide data about notes taken on the wine for the time period we would care about). Also, if the note was done directly here (and some would be) there's no way to ensure that people always write notes in a format that would allow tracking (i.e TN: WB Offer #4, Chateau M).

Some people might buy the wine and NOT write a note right away as they want to let a wine age a bit. You could do some work and dump all post titles and text into another database and construct queries to mine that in an attempt to deal with those issues but, frankly, I'm not sure that's worth it.

A better alternative might be to use one of the many social media monitoring tools that monitors mentions of brands. If I'm a winery, that's really what I care about - not just TNs but do offers like this cause people to talk about my brand more during and immediately after the offer? Tools like Sprout Social, Radian6, etc do this. From the perspective of a winery, you'd really want to see if there's a bump in brand chatter during the week you're on offer here... but that requires monitoring before and after the week too. If WB invested in the SMM tool and had wineries scheduled, this would be easy to do since you'd know NOW who you're featuring 3 months from now.

[Andrew Hall]

In general, what Rick said, especially about social media tracking utilities. I used to work in large, wacky databases, but am long out of practice. Anything I work with now has tools built in.

I don't think it has to be restricted to official TNs. I hardly write those anymore, either on CT or here. I think overall impressions about a wine or producer is more the kind of data you can map or, even better, visualize.

A.

[Todd F r e n c h (Online)]

In general, what Rick said, especially about social media tracking utilities. I used to work in large, wacky databases, but am long out of practice. Anything I work with now has tools built in.

I don't think it has to be restricted to official TNs. I hardly write those anymore, either on CT or here. I think overall impressions about a wine or producer is more the kind of data you can map or, even better, visualize.

A.

I notified a company that is spot on in this type of scenario - hopefully they join up

[Adam Lee]

As a winery I love the idea.

Adam Lee
Siduri Wines

[Jonathan W]

I like the idea. It may also be a way for people on winery waiting list to order a bottle or two prior to getting their offers. I am on seven waiting lists and it would be beneficial to try a few of these prior to making it to the offer list.

This idea may allow younger collectors to branch out to new wineries.

Jon

[sdfruman]

I think it's a terrific idea, both from the standpoint of being exposed to new wineries, and also to be able to get more in depth information than was possible during the berserker Day frenzy. I actually went back into the offers after BDIII and made a list of those I didn't get, but want to try at some point in the near future. This would also give those of us with space and spending issues to spread out the impact throughout the year.

[Charlie Fu (Online)]

kinda like wine.woot right? Before they went to daily they had one offering a week. They had a forum for each offering and the winemaker or a rep would come on and answer any questions people had.

[Andrew Morris]

I like the idea. It seems like having it be a couple of wineries every couple of weeks might be good format. It would give enough time to have some back and forth with the wineries, and give people a chance to get to know a wider range of wineries. There are a lot of ways this could work.

kinda like wine.woot right? Before they went to daily they had one offering a week. They had a forum for each offering and the winemaker or a rep would come on and answer any questions people had.

[Todd F r e n c h (Online)]

kinda like wine.woot right? Before they went to daily they had one offering a week. They had a forum for each offering and the winemaker or a rep would come on and answer any questions people had.

Didn't know they did that - the advantage we've got, however, is that people are already spending all day (and somehow still getting paid at their jobs) talking about wine...it is already setup as a destination. I would imagine a larger variety of communication, as well, rather than those who end up at wine.woot - gotta appeal to the geeks, baby.

[Charlie Fu (Online)]

kinda like wine.woot right? Before they went to daily they had one offering a week. They had a forum for each offering and the winemaker or a rep would come on and answer any questions people had.

Didn't know they did that - the advantage we've got, however, is that people are already spending all day (and somehow still getting paid at their jobs) talking about wine...it is already setup as a destination. I would imagine a larger variety of communication, as well, rather than those who end up at wine.woot - gotta appeal to the geeks, baby.

the ppl at wine.woot are pretty geeky about it, not at nearly the same level as "collectors" as most of us are but they talk quite a bit about wine. Every week would be roughly 8-10 pages on each winery.

I think it could work here if done in a way that would easily facilitate the transaction. At Wine.woot all you did was click a button and everything was pre filled out. If you had to give your CC/address etc to each new winery, I can imagine it might stop a few sales.

[Todd F r e n c h (Online)]

kinda like wine.woot right? Before they went to daily they had one offering a week. They had a forum for each offering and the winemaker or a rep would come on and answer any questions people had.

Didn't know they did that - the advantage we've got, however, is that people are already spending all day (and somehow still getting paid at their jobs) talking about wine...it is already setup as a destination. I would imagine a larger variety of communication, as well, rather than those who end up at wine.woot - gotta appeal to the geeks, baby.

the ppl at wine.woot are pretty geeky about it, not at nearly the same level as "collectors" as most of us are but they talk quite a bit about wine. Every week would be roughly 8-10 pages on each winery.

I think it could work here if done in a way that would easily facilitate the transaction. At Wine.woot all you did was click a button and everything was pre filled out. If you had to give your CC/address etc to each new winery, I can imagine it might stop a few sales.

I'm not about to get a license to sell alcohol - would be a tremendous pain. The wineries would be responsible for their own transactions, and based on the overwhelming feedback about BerserkerDay whereby the wineries WANTED to talk to each person individually rather than a smooth, unified system, I think that same aspect should apply here. A significant part of this experience is the interaction, and that can start with the order itself.

[Andrew Hall]

I'm not about to get a license to sell alcohol - would be a tremendous pain.

I don't think you need a license to be the payment processor. Not saying you want to or should do this.


A.

[cbehensky]

kinda like wine.woot right? Before they went to daily they had one offering a week. They had a forum for each offering and the winemaker or a rep would come on and answer any questions people had.

As someone who is relatively new to wine, this has often been a deciding factor on whether to purchase or not. I've made a lot of woot purchases based on winemaker participation. And it's not just an "on the fence" issue. There have been a couple of instances where I checked early in the day and thought, "meh." Then I'll check back that evening, read through the posts, and change my mind (sometimes positively, sometimes negatively) based on how he/she/they answer questions. I think it's tough to not get caught up in the passion they have for their wines. It's more difficult now since the deals change every day, but I still rely on the kind of engagement they have with the community. Plus, other wooters will chime with tasting notes or other feedback, and it ends up being a nice mix of information, commentary, and Q&A. I won't purchase something if it's totally unappealing, so there are limits on its effectiveness, but the sense of community and the active participation is the main reason that woot gets much (much much much?) more of my $$ than any of the other flash-sale sites.

This year marked my first BerskerDay and I loved it. The biggest issue for me was (A) staying within my budget, which led to (B) trying to figure out which offers to jump on. My strategy was a combination of looking up CT notes, searching through the forums for other info, and looking to see what the winemakers themselves had posted. The thing that made it "difficult" was the number of offers and the pace at which they came up. A more relaxed setting and time frame for asking questions, reading what others had to say, and just learning more about the wines would be incredibly valuable to me.

EDIT: Just noticed Charlie's post on the practical aspects of buying. Personally, I don't see that as being an issue. It's not like I buy from Woot just because it's easy or anything. Plus, it seemed like what Todd proposed was more of a monthly rotation. If I was doing it every other day, I might get tired of it (and run out of money!). But if it's just once or twice a month, I can't imagine that someone would find it cumbersome to make a phone call or click a link to the winery page.

[Nola Palomar]

As a winery I love the idea.

Adam Lee
Siduri Wines

+1

[Jonathan W]

Has there been any updates on this possible concept. I am excited about the idea and it appears some others are as well.

Thanks

Jon

[Todd F r e n c h (Online)]

Has there been any updates on this possible concept. I am excited about the idea and it appears some others are as well.

Thanks

Jon

Nothing more yet - the feedback is rather overwhelmingly positive so likely it will happen

[Todd F r e n c h (Online)]

Because I'm in the middle of moving out of my house, I can't get on this project this month, but I can get started next month.

In the interim, if you are a winemaker and are interested in participating, email me at todd at wineberserkers.com (the 'at' is @) and we'll chat.

[Kevin Sidders]

We love to be involved in coordination with our European winery clients where it makes sense...

[Dave Smig]

As a winery I love the idea.

Adam Lee
Siduri Wines

+1

+2

As a small producer who can often get overlooked on BD I would welcome the opportunity at a captive audience to answer questions and hear honest feedback about our wines.

Kudos to Frenchy for listening to the people and taking action.

[Todd Hamina]

Sounds very interesting, I'd have a go at it!