Tag Archives: awba

What awards are we talking about?

If you have read my blog for a while then you’ll have seen some posts on the American Wine Blog Awards and know that for one reason or another I think that they could be improved (in particular that there are plenty of other blogs out there that are not American).

However, the reaction in the wine blogging fraternity to the list of finalists has been rather negative (except for those who qualified, of course!) and concentrating a little more on who DIDN’T qualify rather than who DID.

Here are some reactions:

Jill at Domaine547
Tim at Winecast
EnoBytes

I just wanted to put it on the record that despite my misgivings about the US centric nature of the awards, I think they are a good idea and will help to introduce quality new blogs to a wider audience. I’ve been doing this for some time now and I hadn’t heard of a great percentage of these finalists before.

There is already talk of creating a new award, one that would be broader in scope (not just bloggers) and reach (not just Americans around the world). I applaud the idea, but let’s not take away from the PR efforts Tom Wark at Fermentation is doing and maybe keep those discussions for later?

If you haven’t voted, I do urge you to take a look at the site as there are some very interesting sites in the running and you too might discover a new gem.

All of which reminds me that I MUST update the blog roll with all sorts of new sites and blogs I read regularly. I am still thinking about how I might organise it so any suggestions of sites that should be included (yours?) are still welcome.

Wine Blog Awards

Okay, the AMERICAN Wine Blog Awards, have now announced the finalists.

There will be lots of sites in everyone’s Readers imploring you to vote for them, and I think you should definitely take a look at the results.

Some of these sites are new to me and I will check them out before voting.

Just for the record, here are the sites in each category that are not 100% US based (as per my previous post) – of course even some of these may well have some US connections (in fact they all do):

Best Wine Blog Writing
ON THE WINE TRAIL IN ITALY

Best Single Subject Wine Blog
CATAVINO

Best Winery Blog
LA GRAMIERE

Best Wine Blog Graphics
ON THE WINE TRAIL IN ITALY

Best Wine Review Blog
[none]

Best Wine Podcast of VideoBlog
[none]

Best Wine Business Blog
[none]

Best Overall Wine Blog
[none]

Blog Awards

You may already be already aware of this, but Tom Wark at Fermentation established the American Wine Blog Awards in 2007, and nominations are now open for the 2008 awards. I think this is an excellent initiative that we should all support.

This is not a post to canvas for votes or nominations, I am pretty sure my interests are far too esoteric to appeal to appeal to a broad range of readers, but rather it is an appeal to broaden the reach of the awards themselves.

The categories are:
Best Wine Blog
Best Single Subject Wine Blog
Best Wine Review Blog
Best Wine Business Blogging
Best Winery Blog
Best Wine Podcast or Video Blog
Best Wine Blog Graphics

These awards are already very popular and generate a lot of nominations and votes, but the vast majority of these are from reades and bloggers in the USA. If you are reading my blog I assume you have at least a passing interest in wine and I know from my trusty Google Analytics account that a large percentage of you are from outside the US. If so, head on down to the awards pages and nominate your own favourite blogs from all over the world. The only provisos are that they are blogs about wine, written in English and updated regularly.

As Tom will know, I think that the term “American” in the title is misleading, but more on that another day (it seems surly to go into that now).

Let’s spread the word and make this competition, including the nominations, votes and awards, even more representative of wine blog readers around the world.

Thanks Tom!