Wine Blog Awards

January 11, 2007 | by Ryan Opaz | Posted in: Blog | 11 Comments

Tom Wark at Fermentation has officially announced the first annual American Wine Blog Awards. Although, Tom makes mention of how wine blogging has been good to him both professionally and personally – a statement that I would have to agree with – there seems to be a never ending list of wine blogs out there. If we consider these blogs in addition to the even larger food blogging community who have there own awards to deal with, you have quite the plethora to choose from.

Personally, I have mixed feelings about awards of this nature. I know they are there to raise the overall awareness of all the wonderful work being done on wine blogs, in addition to highlighting the best of the best, but how truly effective are they? Would you be willing to change your reading habits based on the outcome of the contest? If your like me, online everyday scanning 10-15 feeds from the “top” wine blogs, you most likely will pass up on the article knowing full well who has already been rated as the best. Granted, these awards could help eliminate the SEO nightmare that a new blogger deals with when trying to gather readers to their site, but I just don’t think this is a persuasive enough argument. Let’s consider who is actually reading these blogs. If I were a betting man, I would say that the majority of the readers are tech friendly wine aficionados who are very comfortable with computers and not the everyday wine joe that we ideally want. Now, if you waited a few years, I would imagine that the rate of casual wine drinkers would increase, whereby making the contest more meaningful.

Overall, I do feel that Tom has the best intention in getting the word out about wine blogs, potentially driving more readership where it has been lacking. I wish him the best of luck and want to help in any way possible. With time this event might garner praise and recognition outside of the “blog-o-sphere“. Let’s also be clear in making it known that we sure wouldn’t mind getting ourselves onto the first round of Tom’s contest. Therefore I ask our readers to help us here at Catavino to not only be a part of the voting, but also a part of the genesis of Tom’s idea. I’ve scanned the categories and I believe I found one that fits the bill in describing us at Catavino. Let me know if you think it’s right or if not please feel free to submit us to another category if you see another appropriate one.

Till soon,

Ryan Opaz

Andrew

With you on this Ryan, but these things are good in raising the profile of the top blogs over the masses, much the same way as wine competitions are supposed to. But they do tend to boil down to popularity contests – those with large readerships are bound to win. How many different wine blogs can one normal person be bothered with? But I think Tom is in an excellent position to raise this sector of the blogosphere; his connections could take this to mainstream. I must take issue with the name though – 'American' is so geographically limiting (I realise they are open to english language blogs) and rather a snub to those outside the USA.
Ryan

Thanks for the thoughts Andrew. I agree the American part is a little strange, but I guess I understand. It's where the awards originated. On the other hand your right this could make our small blogging effort finally something others pay attention to. Being in the US and talking to retailers and importers everyday, I'm surprised by how many have no idea that we exsist!
Joel

I think its an interesting idea and broadening it … is a community driven site for bloggers to attract readers to their stories. I put it up so that good, insightful writing would get attention. You submit the stories and readers in the community vote on them. And, like Digg.com for Tech, popular stories get promoted to the front page. Community driven editorial control. This is one way for a blog starting out to get exposure (of course, it has to be a well written article to be popular and get promoted). A good article will get read more often and the name of the blog it came from (or online publication) doesn't matter as much. Its been up for about 6 months now and has attracted enough users such that the Front Page has very interesting stuff on there. It still has a Catavino feed going to it but I haven't had to use feeds on there any more b/c users are steadily submitting their stories for the community to review. So long story short – the awards attract attention to the whole sector of wine blogs which is good for everyone. Community driven sites are how smaller blogs can differentiate themselves with their content.
http://www.spittoon.biz Andrew

With you on this Ryan, but these things are good in raising the profile of the top blogs over the masses, much the same way as wine competitions are supposed to. But they do tend to boil down to popularity contests – those with large readerships are bound to win. How many different wine blogs can one normal person be bothered with?

But I think Tom is in an excellent position to raise this sector of the blogosphere; his connections could take this to mainstream.

I must take issue with the name though – ‘American’ is so geographically limiting (I realise they are open to english language blogs) and rather a snub to those outside the USA.
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Ryan

I hope your right Joel. I really want these community sites to work though I think we have a ways to go. Digg works because it has a HUGE base, your site is a great start and I wish it the best, with a bit more time who knows what could happen. I really do think Tom was smart to do this. Also gutsy, to be the first is hard, but can be very rewarding. I like what the well-fed network has done and I hope that Tom has the same level of success with time! thanks for the comment
http://www.catavino.net Ryan

Thanks for the thoughts Andrew. I agree the American part is a little strange, but I guess I understand. It’s where the awards originated.

On the other hand your right this could make our small blogging effort finally something others pay attention to. Being in the US and talking to retailers and importers everyday, I’m surprised by how many have no idea that we exsist!
http://www.winelifetoday.com Joel

I think its an interesting idea and broadening it might help (not calling it American). The timing is right. The results, today, may not be relevant because, as you say, its not as much the casual reader. But if he were to wait a few year until there were more casual readers then he would spend the following few years establishing the “brand” for the award. Now he is establishing it and in a few years it’ll be “the” award to get. The grand-daddy. It was smart by him.

As a plug for myself, Wine Life Today is a community driven site for bloggers to attract readers to their stories. I put it up so that good, insightful writing would get attention. You submit the stories and readers in the community vote on them. And, like Digg.com for Tech, popular stories get promoted to the front page. Community driven editorial control. This is one way for a blog starting out to get exposure (of course, it has to be a well written article to be popular and get promoted). A good article will get read more often and the name of the blog it came from (or online publication) doesn’t matter as much. Its been up for about 6 months now and has attracted enough users such that the Front Page has very interesting stuff on there. It still has a Catavino feed going to it but I haven’t had to use feeds on there any more b/c users are steadily submitting their stories for the community to review.

So long story short – the awards attract attention to the whole sector of wine blogs which is good for everyone. Community driven sites are how smaller blogs can differentiate themselves with their content.
http://www.catavino.net Ryan

I hope your right Joel. I really want these community sites to work though I think we have a ways to go. Digg works because it has a HUGE base, your site is a great start and I wish it the best, with a bit more time who knows what could happen.

I really do think Tom was smart to do this. Also gutsy, to be the first is hard, but can be very rewarding. I like what the well-fed network has done and I hope that Tom has the same level of success with time!

thanks for the comment
Josh

Great post Ryan. Interesting take. If you take a step back even further I would argue that the real genius in Tom's awards is that it increses the exposure for Fermentation immensely. Much like how Lenn got lots of recognition for initiating Wine Blog Wednesday, being the first to create an award specifically for wine blogs adds to the stature and visibility of the person bestowing the award. Tom is in PR after all, and he knows his stuff. Everyone getting nominated is getting a bit more attention than they otherwise would have as well, so I think its a win-win.
http://www.pinotblogger.com Josh

Great post Ryan. Interesting take. If you take a step back even further I would argue that the real genius in Tom’s awards is that it increses the exposure for Fermentation immensely. Much like how Lenn got lots of recognition for initiating Wine Blog Wednesday, being the first to create an award specifically for wine blogs adds to the stature and visibility of the person bestowing the award.

Tom is in PR after all, and he knows his stuff. Everyone getting nominated is getting a bit more attention than they otherwise would have as well, so I think its a win-win.