The Bundle
Silver Oak Cellars is leaning into high-end DTC gifting this holiday cycle, teaming with Los Angeles luxury game brand Throwing Doubles on a limited-edition backgammon set bundled with a bottle of the winery's 2022 Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. Priced at $450 per unit and capped at just 100 sets, the collaboration bypasses the conventional wholesale and three-tier channel entirely, landing exclusively on silveroak.com — a deliberate route-to-market choice that preserves margin and brand control heading into the highest-volume gifting period of the year.
The set itself is handmade in Los Angeles using premium leather in a custom Cabernet-red colorway, finished with an embossed Silver Oak wordmark. Each board is designed for active use rather than shelf display — a positioning that aligns with where premium lifestyle brands are focusing DTC storytelling: experiential, shareable, and occasion-driven. For a winery like Silver Oak, founded in 1972 and built on the social ritual of gathering around a bottle, the category extension into tabletop gaming is less a stretch than a reinforcement of existing brand equity.
DTC Strategy and SKU Logic
Bundling a single SKU — the 2022 Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon — with a branded lifestyle product is a proven mechanism for lifting average order value in DTC wine commerce, particularly during Q4 when gifting intent is highest. By anchoring the bundle at $450 and limiting production to 100 units, Silver Oak applies artificial scarcity to drive urgency without cannibalizing its core off-premise or on-premise placement. The winery holds no obligation to wholesale this product through a distributor network, which means no depletion reporting, no wholesaler margin concession, and no planogram negotiation with retail buyers.
Throwing Doubles, founded in 2022 by Brittany Weinke, already carries shelf placement at Nordstrom, Moda Operandi, FWRD, and goop, as well as select luxury hotel boutiques globally. That existing footprint signals the game brand's retail credibility, though this particular collaboration moves exclusively through Silver Oak's own e-commerce channel. "Wine and backgammon both have these incredible histories, but neither needs to feel overly traditional," Weinke said. "The best backgammon boards live out on a table. They get played after dinner, packed for weekends away, and pulled out when friends come over. That made Silver Oak feel like a very natural partner."
What It Means for Trade
For beverage suppliers watching the premium wine segment, this release is a data point in the broader conversation about how Napa and Sonoma producers are approaching the DTC channel as a margin-preservation tool. With three-tier distribution costs compressing supplier economics — especially for sub-$50 retail bottles — moving high-ASP (average selling price) bundles through owned e-commerce is increasingly attractive. A $450 transaction at Silver Oak's own checkout carries none of the wholesaler or retailer margin load that the same bottle would absorb moving through conventional distribution.
Silver Oak CMO Lauren Larrabee framed the collaboration around brand affinity rather than volume strategy. "What resonates with everyone is that it isn't always the big milestones," Larrabee said. "It's the dinners with friends, family traditions, and nights that people remember years later." That sentiment tracks with broader category research showing that premium wine occasions increasingly skew toward intimate, at-home entertaining — the same behavioral trend that has driven growth in both direct-to-consumer wine shipments and the upscale tabletop accessories market. Coverage of similar premium wine DTC strategies can be found in our wine distribution and direct-to-consumer coverage. The Food & Beverage Magazine network has tracked the acceleration of DTC channel investment across the premium wine segment throughout 2025 and into this year.
The Silver Oak x Throwing Doubles Backgammon Set became available October 15 exclusively at silveroak.com, while supplies last.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
