About the American Wine Blog Awards

Posted by Tom Wark on Feb 16, 2008

Welcome to the 2008 American Wine Blog Awards

This is only the second year for the American Wine Blog Awards. They remain a vehicle for promoting the very best of what has become an extraordinarily important medium for communicating information and passions about wine. The idea is to highlight those exceptional efforts at communicating about wine through blogging.

The format is a simple one:
1. Nominations in 8 categories are taken from the public
2. A Judging Panel reviews the nominated blogs and choose 4 finalists in each category
3. The public votes for their favorite finalist in each category
4. The Judging Panel votes for their favorite finalist in each category
5. The public vote is given 70% weighting; the Judging Panel is given 30% weighting.

The American Wine Blog Awards were begun by me, Tom Wark, the proprietor of this wine blog (FERMENTATION) in 2007. A wine publicist of nearly 20 years, I’ve come to have  a great  deal of respect for those who write about wine for a living. Yet, that collection of people was always fairly small. With the advent of the blog, those who thought they had something of interest to communicate about wine grew tremendously. And though the new wine bloggers were not usually paid for their efforts, there were among them absolutely terrific minds and writers.

The hope is that through these awards and the awards process, many in the wine industry, publishing industry, many who consume wine information and those who publish traditional wine publications will come across the best of the wine blogging community.