Love the new participants this year and they keep the lifeblood of BD going. Also a major tip of the hat to the 10 year MVP providers of Bersereker Days. Todd, Nola, Carole, Karen & John, Larry, Vincent, Merrill, Brian, Bryan, Andrew, John & Paul. These folks are the backbone of the event and I look forward to their offers 363 days in advance. Also in addition to the MVP group, special thanks is due to soon to be MVPs, Jim A of Patricia Green and Marcus of Goodfellow, as they are here 365 to answer our questions & comment on our thoughts.
This thread is dedicated to the offers of the past. Those that are gone, those that have not recently participated.
Post your remembrances and laments here.
I have purchased from 44 different providers in my 8 years of BD participation. Would like to see a number of them back and to wish those well who have moved on.
Arcadian
Art & Science
Balanced Wine Selections
Bevela
Boheme
Campesino
Cave Dog
Cebada
Cellars 33
Chesterâs Anvil
Crawford
EMH Black Cat
Fogline
Foursight
Franny Beck
Goodfellow
Harrington
I Brand
Jean Edwards
Johan
Keller
Kelley Fox
Ladd
Lichen
Liquid Farm
Longplay
Loring
Maison Harbour
Match
Navarro
Patricia Green
Riverain
Sandler
Scherrer
Seven Of Hearts
Signal Ridge
Sojourn
stars & dust
Tercero
Theopolis
Vincent
Virage
Wilde Farm
Zepaltas
I recall Pete that you and I combined our Match order for the grand finale to get over the free shipping threshold. One of those, I wish I would have bought more offers. Sad to see Randy go. His wine was so fân delicious. Still trying to figure out who uses Butterdragon and Baconbrook fruit now
Past BD participants that I purchased from who are no longer around* or just canât be bothered.
Match*
Kendric
Fulcrum
Kaella*
Keating*
Montagu
Smith-Madrone
Longplay
That was me mentioning the Foursight Semillion. You asked about BD favorites and I posted that one . Joe from Foursight saw it and gave some background on the wine and winemaking
Also, thanks for posting in this thread. Itâs not getting as much traction as I had hoped. Since I started the thread, more people have posted in the fried eggs thread than this one
Folks trying to block BD out after a dizzying two days?
Personal opinion: I view berserkerday as a platform for a winery to leverage to their advantage when appropriate. There are a vast range of motivations and aspirations for participating and most are not shared.
Iâll reference Fred and Judi Scherrer. They did BD11 after arm twisting from Todd and myself. It was a big hit. Then the COVID shit hit the fan and they jumped on the relief offer in the summer. There was no expectation the Scherrer âowedâ anything to wine berserkers for BD12. They elected to participate, super duper.
Will they play in BD13, I donât know. But they donât have to and if they said âno thank you but thanks for the fishâ I would be grateful they were here and added to the texture that is berserkerday.
So I donât take it personally if a winery decides not to participate every year. We are here if they need us.
Regarding Foresight, good stuff, I purchased from Joe.
I miss The Princess & the Peasant. They donât really exist anymore. I still have 2 bottles of their Poor Ranch Carignan.
I am glad that Fred Scherrer participated. From what I can tell, his whole ethos is Berserker-ish, and a natural fit. Hope he continues to participate.
Thanks agin for all the kind words yâall. No need to speculate why I have not participated in a couple years, Ill tell yâall.
It took me years to even think about participating as a winery as I spent so much time being a consumer of BD day, I recall one year I missed buying the most bottles by 4 or so. We also typically close for nearly all of January and go to our condo in Truckee, time off to compensate for all the harvest overtime. After we bought the condo I bought less wine, then I had a kid and bought and drank less wine and just flat out got to busy with work/life. The logistics of trying to set up and run the sales remotely was difficult and kinda killed the last weekend of vacation. Not to mention simultaneously my wife would be getting ready to ship the January 4 bottle 3 times a year club.
The first couple years I participated it went very well for us, though it was the deepest discount of the year that we would offer. Word got out up here in AV that BD day was going good for us. Then multiple other brands from AV were doing huge discounts plus free/cheap shipping on wine that was less expensive than mine to start. So our sales did not justify all the work to set up and mange the sale. As noted many of those brands no longer exist, I am constantly shocked by the turnover up here. We opened in 2009, and are now the 7th oldest brand with a tasting room of 28 on one of a very few just focusing on AV (and PN for reds) ONLY production. We sell all direct for the last few years, so I dont do the restaurant(30-50%) or distributor(50%+ market visits etc.) discounts any more either.
I have bought and enjoyed wine from the vast majority of folks on Mikes list, most were at or above expectations and for good pricing.
I will always extend my club price of 20% off to any berserkers, just pm for a coupon code.
Be sure to check out the BerserkerDay Archive forums, for a real trip down memory lane!
The VERY first one wasnât its own forum, but if you do a search for BerserkerDay (and youâll get tens of thousands of results) and go to the very last pages in the results, youâll see how the first one was conducted and who was in it
To me, this is a great story. Berserkerday is here if itâs beneficial and hopefully it played a small part in your 100% DTC by building up the mailing list.
BTW - I remember talking with you about something offer related a few years back and you said âIâm skiing right now.â Damn you! LOL
I remember Joseph Swan participated one year but then had a shipping hiccup with an opinionated customer and said something to the effect of âI think this is a bit too much for a small winery like us.â
I was sad to see them go.
Jemrose was another good one, but I think the owner moved or retired.
Oh man I get the Swan thing, especially since I set up all the DTC stuff back in the day when I worked for Rod, â05-â07 as DTC manager/assistant winemaker. Sometimes its not even the fault of the winery, but the winery has to fix it. I just got notified of a missing package claim for 4 bottles from mid Dec! UPS is great most of the time but when they fuck up it sucks! Just shipped a bike they must have dropped off the truck, ah now to insurance claims,arg.
There was this guy named John Holdredge, made Pinot and Shioppettino. Used to post here regularly. One day he picked up his fishing pole and nobody heard from him again.