2010 Wine Blog Awards Voting is Open

Well goodness. I didn't really expect a nomination, but it is indeed an honor to be nominated.

A little surprised I had to find out about it on a bathroom wall, er, I mean Twitter. Then again, email is so olde fashioned! ;)

El Jefe, I did send you an email on Tuesday morning but I sent it to tastingroom@twistedoak.com and perhaps it didn't get to you.

Wow. What a lively group! I actually am a food blogger who occasionally does wine pairings with certain recipes. I piped in earlier in the process because I did think it was an oversight that there were no award categories for the pairing of wine. This crazy discussion proves true what I thought at that time! Wine bloggers really only want to talk to each other. Crazy. GREG

Who picks the ones to vote for?

Shh, it's a secret!

I notice that in the "best single subject blog" category Vinsanity is listed. It's a nice blog, but what's the "single subject"?

Humbled and honored to be included (via the nomination for wine biz blogs) in this group of established new media pros. Thanks for the recognition.
Cheers,
Cork

At the suggestion of Jason Haas, I have posted the list of finalists with links to their sites on the 2010 Awards page of this website. This should make it easier to click through to each finalist's site.

When will the judges list be published?

They won't be. Its up to them if they want to talk about being a judge or not. Thats the way its been for the last few years and we didn't change it this year.

There are a lot of things that have been done a certain way for the past few years. It was your job to fix those things. The way it has always been done is a joke, and was the impetus for Wark giving it up.

Is there something that needs to be hidden? It would certainly appear so. For all anyone can tell from your process, some of the judges could just as easily be among the finalists. Why did you take this over if not to make this an open and reasonable process? If you are not willing to be accountable for your choices, you shouldn't be doing this. And if the judges are not willing to have their qualifications examined by the wine blogging community, then they should not be involved either. These awards are either open and honest, representing and owned by the community as a whole, or they are gifts from on high presented by an old boys club meeting behind closed doors.

You should be ashamed, Joel. An awful lot of people thought that you were much better than this.

No, the impetus for me giving up the American Wine Blog Awards was so that a larger organization more reach into the wine community could help give the awards greater reach.

And since I have pretty thick skin, I'd wouldn't mind studying your explanation of what made the awards a "joke" for the past three years.

Now I'm sure you don't suspect that there is any hanky panky involved in the finalist choices. Otherwise you'd say so. But it's the implication that strikes a shameful.

Frankly, I'm not convinced that you actually have any way to measure the qualifications of a judge for the wine blog awards. But I might be entirely wrong and would love to hear what your thoughts are on appropriate qualifications.

Tom Wark...

Your awards were a means for a decent PR guy to drive more traffic to his site. It worked better than you could have imagined, but that meant more was expected of you.

I see your point about not being able to measure if a judge is qualified, that's tough when they operate in secret. I can tell you that I am pretty good at evaluating who isn't a good judge. Hence the movement last year to replace you that was curtailed by the OWC stepping up. Perhaps we shouldn't have backed off.

Secrecy, defended with belligerence and arrogance can be a pretty damn good indicator of "hanky pankly," as you put it. However, I would never make such an accusation without solid proof. If I get some, I'll be sure you are the first to know.

An example of a qualified judge might be a graphic designer judging the graphic design category, instead of some self-appointed schmuck who chooses a site that makes fun of wine bloggers between gratuitous nude shots. Just my opinion. Others may consider that an example of good design.

Let me know if I can clear anything else up for you. Maybe you could get me some answers in return? That would be very cool.

Joe: LOL..."The movement"???? Really, since when are your random thoughts and bitterness for not being a finalist considered a "movement"? You need to get out of the house more.

As for the things you'd do without solid proof, who knows exactly what that is. We do know however that you'd shoot off your mouth and make claims that have no basis in fact. Did you already claim that I was responsible for determining the awards? Why yest you did. Did you claim other things about me that you have no proof of? Yes you did.

Your holier than thou act is pretty tired. You are acting like a bitter, has-been, old loser. You owe some apologies. But I won't be surprised when you don't step up and make them.

You may be right. Maybe I should be ashamed of myself. I'll continue doing the best I can to improve this brick by brick and I'll manage the change in a sustainable way as I do with most things.

I've never done anything that I'm not proud to tell my daughters about so I think I'll live.

There is no maybe about it. Snarky replies about your daughters don't answer a single one of my points. Nice attempt at deflection. But you took this on. Be accountable.

Maybe you could take a crack at just one actual answer. Why the secrecy?

There is a very good reason for not disclosing who the judges are during the process: They could be LOBBIED!! Not a very good idea.

For two years I revealed who the judges were, but not before the awards were give.

That the way it should be. There's no reason to encourage lobbying by nominees or finalists

Tom Wark

Judges could be "LOBBIED!" Are you serious? ROTFLMAO! Don't you really mean held accountable?

Guys - please consider moving this discussion to a private chat or email thread.

I'd love to know the outcome of any discussion on the judges and judging process, but the sausage-making to get there is (just my opinion here), unbecoming of the talents, intelligence, and passion of both of you.

Hoping this doesn't come off as condescending, or too sensitive, or similar - it's not meant that way. I really like you guys and it hurts me to see this kind of thread.

Judges that can be lobbied aren't very good judges, now are they? That reflects quite poorly on the person or group that chose them.

Joe:

Now you are just making a fool of yourself and indicating that you actually have no idea of what you speak. Furthermore, until you can actually offer a genuine explanation as to why you think it's troublesome that judges not be disclosed during the judging process then it just looks like you are bitter that your decent little blog once again failed to impress.

You already made a fool of yourself by claiming that one person gave out the awards. You obviously are not in a position or in any way qualified to comment intelligently on these issue. At least first educate yourself.

How great to be nominated in the 'best new' category! I thank you most sincerely. (As, I'm sure, would Leif and all the Norse in Vinland were they still with us.)

A big kudos goes out to the judges for their hard work. Good luck to all of the finalists.

Uhm... wow! thanks!

I am likewise humbled and honored to be included amongst such great company in the "Best Reviews" category. Thanks so much!

Who were the 11 judges, and what were their qualifications?

Still waiting to learn the identities of the Mysterious 11 Starchamber members.

Honored to be nominated! And such great company in the "Best New" category!

Thanks for the honor of the nomination!

Would it be possible to post a link to each blog that was selected as a finalist in each category from this page? You can't click on the URL's from the SurveyMonkey page, so it's hard to browse through the nominees' sites. And that's what I always think is most fun about the process... discovering the blogs that you didn't already know!

Thanks,
-Jason

I'm shocked and appalled that Tom Wark's blog was not among the finalists for best industry blog. That's bordering on insulting.

Alder:

I removed myself from the possibility of being nominated since it was was so involved in the Awards process the past few years.

But...thanks!!

Tom Wark

Hopefully this is veiled sarcasm, because like Jason said, Tom took himself out of the running for 2010 (and just 2010): http://fermentation.typepad.com/fermentation/wine_blog_awards/

Hi Alder, I believe that Tom disqualified himself from eligibility for a period of a few years when he handed the awards off.

Ah, I did not know that!! I retract my comments entirely. Thanks for setting me straight.