The Wine Knows

I'm not into awards. Somewhere in our house is a box filled with writing awards I won in college, when these kinds of things meant something to me and could help me get a job.

But awards are part of the writing landscape, and that includes blogging. Over at Fermentation, the American Wine Blog Awards voting is going on. Here's why you should check it out.

If you love wine, you probably enjoy reading about it. The more you read about it from credible sources, the more you learn about it. Presumably, you'll love wine even more if you know more about it.

With a zillion wine blogs out there, an awards system can help separate the juice from the lees. Thus, it is worth exploring the candidates to find which blogs you might enjoy reading (in addition to this one, of course!).

On the other hand, a big problem with Web-based awards, in which the winners are chosen by readers, is the candidates tend to put up a bunch of "Vote for me!" links in their blogs and the whole thing becomes a popularity contest, regardless of the content's quality.

Ironically, perhaps the finest wine blog (Fermentation) is not a candidate because Tom Wark is the guy who runs it - and is putting on this contest.