Reflections on Tablas Creek's 2011 Best Winery Blog award
July 25, 2011
On Saturday, at the 2011 Wine Bloggers Conference in Charlottesville, VA, the winners of the 2011 Wine Blog Awards were announced. One of them was us! Thank you to everyone who voted; the award was 50% determined by votes from the public. The other 50% was determined by the votes of the panel of expert judges who culled the list of nominees down to the five-ish finalists in each category.
The world of wine blogs is rich and diverse, and growing all the time. The fact that speakers at the Wine Blog Awards included traditional media figures (and wine writer titans) Eric Asimov and Jancis Robinson shows just how far blogging has penetrated into the mainstream of wine discussion, and how blurry -- some at the conference would say irrelevant -- the boundary between wine writer and wine blogger has become. As always, I learned a lot and developed some new favorites reading through the blogs of the other finalists. And it's only fitting that Tom Wark's Fermentation won both "Best Overall Wine Blog" and "Best Industry Blog". After all, Tom created the Wine Blog Awards back in 2007 and this was his first year eligible after handing the awards off to a nonprofit consortium two years ago. Congratulations to all the winners. The complete list:
Best Overall Wine Blog – Fermentation
Best New Wine Blog – Terroirist
Best Writing on a Wine Blog – Vinography
Best Winery Blog – Tablas Creek
Best Single Subject Wine Blog – New York Cork Report
Best Wine Reviews on a Wine Blog – Enobytes
Best Industry/Business Wine Blog – Fermentation
Best Wine Blog Graphics, Photography, & Presentation – Vino Freakism
I am proud that this was the fourth year in a row that the Tablas Creek blog was a finalist. I'm also proud that the last year of the Tablas Creek blog has been more of a communal effort than ever before, including several great posts by my dad and contributions from two new authors: Assistant Winemaker Chelsea Magnusson, writing Notes from the Cellar, and Tasting Room Manager John Morris, writing View from the Tasting Room. Each brings a different perspective to our effort to share our experiences as we make, sell, plan and reflect on Tablas Creek.
Thank you to all of you who take the time, whether regularly or occasionally, to read our thoughts.