BerserkerDay Awards!!! (winners announced, 'trophies' awarded)

Folks, we’ve already seen that BDIX was the largest, most successful BerserkerDay ever. Most users online ever (other than the one spike after I sent an URGENT message to everybody about the SSL change) and held constantly over 1,000 users online for almost the ENTIRE DAY. Post count was way up, and from what I’ve heard from some of the participating wineries/companies, the orders were flying in.

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I want to recognize a few people who really stood out, so I’m doing official BerserkerDay awards. I started last year with two: BD Champ (BerserkerDay Champ) for the person who ordered the most wine, and last year, Mike Evans was the Champ (and almost did it again this year!), and BD R.O.T.Y (Rookie of the Year) for the first-timer who purchased the most wine. That award went to John Simpson, who is now in the lead for Champ!

This year, I’ve got several others, and the main two - BD CHAMP and BD R.O.T.Y - are pending confirmation. So far, we have John Simpson with 140 bottles as the leader for BD Champ, and RKatz with 68 bottles for R.O.T.Y. Please let me know, publicly or privately, if you’ve surpassed either of those numbers (as a veteran for Champ, or a rookie for ROTY)

I’ve added two new rankings this year:

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All-Pro will, currently (remember, this is based only on what I know, what I’m told, so feel free to interject privately or publicly if you want to share this award, as it’s for more than one person), highlight two BerserkerDay ballers: Mike Evans (Champ last year with 101 bottles, and purchased 119 the year before the awards existed!) and sdfruman (everybody who has participated in BerserkerDay knows she’s a big player, every single year). All Pros are those who buy big every year, or mostly every year, and I’m considering strongly adding Rich K0rzenk0 to the list!

MVP is to one participant who absolutely ruled the day, and the winner this year is Nola Palomar, for the extraordinary auction item (that failed to get what it truly SHOULD have, but nonetheless is probably the best auction item ever offered) as well as unwavering, continuous support for the community, with great deals in every BerserkerDay Veleta participates in, and generosity throughout the year as well.

All-Pro and MVP are active, and the users now sport the badge of honor. Champ and ROTY are still pending, so feel free to interject with some of your own numbers, so we can correctly identify our best-of-the-best!

Lastly, thank you ALL for BerserkerDay. What started as a humble, tiny ‘let’s celebrate that we’re still here after one year’ dozen-or-so threads in Asylum in January of 2010 has turned into an event where over $250,000 in wine sales occur, most to small (some TINY) wineries that are not only gems for those of us who love wine, but allow for them to continue with their dream of making wine, using the sales from BerserkerDay to pay bills, buy glass for the next bottling, or just give a boost of cash flow to start the year. I’m proud to be a part of it.

Although a member for many years, this was my 1st year participating in BD and what a blast! Mucho thanks to the wineries for amazing deals that couldn’t be passed up, and kudos to Wine Berserkers for creating a community of winos.

Excited to even be a preliminary ROTY! The offerings were quite serendipitous for me personally. I’m heading to Sonoma in a week and wasn’t able to get a tasting with Wilde Farm Wines onto my schedule so was happy to see them as an offering. I’ve been wanting to visit Crawford Family Wines on my 2-3 outings a year to Santa Ynez valley, and just never seemed to fit it on the itinerary so I’m happy to be able to finally try the wines. Tercero/Loring I’ve had before and at those prices those wines are steals (sorry Larry). After trying Paul Lato’s rose and now Larry’s, I needed to load up on rose for this summer. Stick Patricia Green and Sandler in the “never tried but sounds intriguing” category. Now, how to coordinate all the shipments?!!! I might need to start having my wife’s work sign for them (don’t worry she authorized all the purchasing), she’s a lurking WB too!

OMG, THANK YOU Todd! I really tried to enable this year as much as buy! As many of you know, I am a HUGE fan of small producers and love to watch them progress from one BD to the next. I am thrilled when I recommend a winery and my friends fall in love with them as well! I will proudly wear the BD All Pro banner! Let’s all thank Todd and Brig for all their hard work making BD the BEST day of the year!!! You guys rock!
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Todd, I am honored that you bestowed the MVP award to us this year which I wholly share with my husband. I get so much more from this place than I give. I have wanted to share our little slice of heaven in the Alpujarra for forever and this made that possible!!

Thank you so much for having this forum for all of us to hang out!! Now on to plan for BDX… Hmmm what can we do, what can we do??? If Juan is well, a guided tour perhaps??? [berserker.gif] [berserker.gif]

Thanks, Todd. It is an honor to be in the same category as Sheila, who set the bar for BD enthusiasm and support. And congratulations to Nola for her well-deserved MVP award and to the contenders for this year’s champ and rookie of the year and the winners of those categories.

The real winners, though, are every person who participated and the WB community at large. I love the infectious enthusiasm that pervades the event and the thrill of discovery at finding producers you never would have heard of and that become regular buys and even friends. It is like a giant family reunion without the drama, providing an annual renewal of relationships and a sense of kinship among people from all over united in celebration of a common interest.

Thanks for another great BD to Todd, Brig, and all of the producers who participated and who I hope found the experience rewarding.

BTW, while I agree that Nola’s auction item is probably the best I’ve seen since I started participating, can I suggest that items like this one be announced ahead of time in the future? It was such an incredibly generous offer, but I suspect a lot of people refrained from bidding because an eight hour window on a Saturday afternoon didn’t give them enough time to decide whether they could use it. If people had a week or two to do a little planning and think about what they could do with a three bedroom apartment in the south of Spain for up to a month, I think the bidding would have been even higher.

We’ve got a new ROTY leader - RKatz with 68 bottles! That’s a great haul for a rookie!!!

Mike, well said, above - far better than I could say, as I’m not so good with words and stuff. Agreed on the auction item - for future auctions, any premier stuff will get longer times, like 3 days rather than 8 hours…

Holy crap! Just heard from (our current Champ leader) John Simpson, who purchased 140 bottles this year!! Went from ROTY to (potentially) Champ, in consecutive years!

Here’s what he nabbed by varietal:
53 bottles of Pinot
39 bottles of Rose
18 bottles of Syrah
12 bottles of Zin
6 bottles of BDX/GSM blend
3 bottles of Carignan
3 bottles of Gamay
3 bottles of Pinot Blanc
3 bottles of Chardonnay

Bravo! Nice haul!

140 … DAMN!
and I thought Subby and I were BSC …
way to go John … champagne.gif

Yeah. That would have been the smart move. I even thought about it. The BD brain trust, Todd & me starring into the yonder, have always strongly believed the auction items shouldn’t be a distraction to the wineries and their offers.

Ultimately that line of reasoning didn’t make sense in this case. We’ll do better next.

For the pro level, how many bottles to be AAA, AA, or A for us minor leaguers?

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We were chatting down in the cesspool forum about how fun it is to find new wines/wineries and develop new relationships! BD was how I discovered and then joined several of my mailing list spots!

Really a great day. My wife gets a thrill just seeing how excited I am all day on BD!

Thank you Todd. This was my first BerserkerDay despite being a longtime member, and I had a great time.

It reminds me of the first time I went to the Texas State Fair for the day soon after moving to Dallas. I had no idea how I was going to find it an interesting day- but I had a wonderful time.

After 3 weeks of working from home with the flu- and so basically working whenever I was not sleeping- here came BD, and I figured I would spend the day checking in and reading as I worked. And it was great. All the wineries I have never heard of, all the stories, all the excitement of new and loyal customers. And then of course I made a new discovery of my own, and look very forward to the wines.

I never would have thought observing and participating in a big hobby forum sale/auction throughout the day could be so much fun- but it was. And glad to see WB and all the donors and participants get some great results as well. It benefits us all.

Congratulations to the buyers, sellers, and - most of all - the organizers, for a successful Berserker Day!!!

Ok folks - bumping this part again, just in case we’ve got folks who might have beaten these numbers. I’d like to give the awards, changing their banners to the special ones, but don’t want to have to change it when I find out afterward there are DIFFERENT champs!

This year, I’ve got several others, and the main two - BD CHAMP and BD R.O.T.Y - are pending confirmation. So far, we have > John Simpson with 140 bottles > as the leader for BD Champ, and > RKatz with 68 bottles > for R.O.T.Y. Please let me know, publicly or privately, if you’ve surpassed either of those numbers (as a veteran for Champ, or a rookie for ROTY)

Any others??

Darn - Just fell short on ROTY with 63!

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There are still a few that remain open! Have you ordered Tercero yet?