Oh, I almost forgot. The awards are in.

Though they generated a fair bit of discussion, about whether or not they were representative and valid, the American Wine Blogging Awards were announced this week by Fermentation blog’s Tom Wark. I have to congratulate Alder Yarrow for the two awards won for his blog Vinography, well-deserved indeed. I’m also glad about Tablas Creek’s Winery blog Award for… best winery blog: I started getting interested in Jason Haas’ blog after a really great post about the great cork debate, and have been a fan since (the wines are pretty great too).

No award process is perfect, but after reading Tom Wark’s discussion of the whole thing, I have to say the AWBA seem about as good as it can get, for a world as fluid as wine blogging. Points were awarded both for public vote and for judge’s votes, nominations were open to the public, while the finalists were selected from this open list by the judges. Could the Awards be improved upon? Probably. Should they be back next year? Tom Wark seems to be hesitating (perhaps from all the criticism), but I certainly think it would be worth it.