I'd like to thank the Academy...

So, the votes have been tallied, and the Tablas Creek blog has won "Best Winery Blog" at the 2008 American Wine Blog Awards!  Thank you to everyone who voted; the award was 70% determined by votes from the public.  The other 30% was determined by the votes of six expert judges (whose names will be revealed this week).

The world of wine blogs is rich and diverse, and growing all the time.  The fact that some of my favorites didn't make the list of finalists this year (no Dr. Vino? no Wine Anorak?) just indicates how many worthy candidates there are.  I learned a lot reading through the blogs of the other finalists, and came up with a few new favorites of my own (most notably Fredric Koeppel's Bigger Than Your Head, which I'd heard of vaguely before the awards but had never visited).

Finally, a big thank you from the whole wine blogging community should go to Tom Wark, who somehow finds time out of his busy schedule of advocating and consulting to write the blog Fermentation and host, conduct and publicize the American Wine Blog Awards.