Welcome to the 2009 American Wine Blog Awards

Posted by Tom Wark on Jan 31, 2009

Welcome to the 2009 American Wine Blog Awards.

This is the third year the Awards have been presented and produced at FERMENTATION: The Daily Wine Blog and for the third year these awards are meant to bring attention to the very best in the Wine Blogging Universe. My hope is that not only will the cream rise to the top, but as a result of these awards more attention will be focused on the most important change to the wine writing world in recent memory.

SPONSORS
For the first time, the American Wine Blog Awards have sponsors. These generous companies are involved as sponsors for a number of reasons, not the least of which are that they believe in the wine blogging genre, they are generous organizations, and they appreciate the quality of the audience that pays attention to the American Wine Blog Awards. This year's sponsors include Riedel Crystal, Mutineer Magazine and The OpenWine Consortium. PLEASE MAKE AN EFFORT TO SHOW YOUR APPRECIATION TO THESE SPONSORS.

CHANGES TO THE AWARDS
There is one minor change to this year's American Wine Blog Awards. We have withdrawn the Best Video Blog/Podcast category. The reason for this is that, first, I believe that podcasts and video blogs are two entirely different animals and can not be lumped together. Second, I believe both the Podcast and the VideoBlog is an entirely different animal with different criteria for success and quality than are the typical blogs.

HOW THE AMERICAN WINE BLOG AWARDS WORK
First is the Nomination Process. Anyone with an opinion may nominate up to 3 blogs in each category. Below you will see seven posts, one for each category. To make nominations in any of these categories simply leave a comment in the comment section of the relevant post. PLEASE…Take note of the criteria for nominating a blog. Most important and as in past years, a blog must have made a minimum of 52 post between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2008.

Second, after the Nomination process is closed, a panel of judges will evaluate all the nominees in each category. Based on their judgment, we will determine the 4 finalists in each category.

Finally, once the finalists are determined, the public and the judges will vote on the best blog among each of the finalists in the seven categories. The vote of the public will be given 70% of the weight toward the eventual winner while the judges opinions will be given 30% of the weight toward determining the winners in each of the seven categories.

NOTE: The number of times a blog is nominated in a category has no impact on if it will be a finalist!

NOTE: FERMENTATION: The Daily Wine Blog is not eligible in any categories.

PUBLICITY
While we will be carrying out a publicity campaign around the American Wine Blog Awards, I URGE you to spread the word yourself in order to draw as many nominations in each category as possible from as diverse a group of people as possible.

I have to thank everyone for participating in these awards. I want to thank everyone for supporting my efforts in organizing them. I want to thank all the judges who will be working very hard to contribute to the  success of the Awards. And I want to thank every reader of FERMENTATION for supporting this blog.

NOW….GO FORTH AND NOMINATE…