Good Grape Wine Company

February 10 2007

A Wine Blogging Battle Royale

The first annual American Wine Blog Awards is still accepting votes for the nominees in seven categories.

Good Grape is nominated in two categories—Best Wine Blog Graphics and Best Overall Blog.  I also write for my employer, Inertia Beverage Group, who is nominated in the best single subject blog.  The nominations are very flattering; if you are so inclined to vote for this site, Inertia or any of the extremely worthy competitors please do so here.

Of the seven categories, the one I’m most interested in seeing the results for, my equivalent of the Best Movie award, is the Best Winery Blog category.  This is a murderer’s row of good winery blogs … a veritable battle royale of winery blogs doing battle for ultimate supremacy:  Stormhoek, Cima Collina, Dover Canyon and Pinot Blogger. 

All of the candidates are extremely worthy, and there a couple of others that I can think of (Paging:  El Bloggo Torcido, the Twisted Oak Winery blog) who could also very easily be on the dais as a nominee. 

The winery blogging category, to me, represents the most hotly contested category because each of them bring something completely different to the table and are very personal, engaging and well done.

Because the finals are based on popular vote, something akin to calling in for your favorite singer on American Idol, there is a strong predisposition to consider candidates as favorites based on their reach.  In the online wine space two things are predominate—high-end computer savvy folks and high-end wine lovers—educated people across the board.

If Vegas were establishing a betting line I’d put my money on Stormhoek as 2-1 favorites based on their melding of appeal to the computer-savvy folks along with their good, value priced wines.  They also offer sheer reach of audience from across the pond and the collateral pick-up based on having Hugh from Gapingvoid.com as their marketing guru.  But, there is the not so subtle fact that they are something of a global brand (albeit small with a can-do attitude) coming from South Africa and a primary commerce beachhead in the UK, with a smattering of placements in the US.  I like to think of them as the Ben & Jerry’s of the wine world—individual and interesting, but are their fans paying attention to vote? 

In contrast to the quirky, underdog appeal of Stormhoek, what Pinot Blogger, Dover Canyon and Cima Collina offer is a personal relationship with the winery.

Josh at Pinot Blogger is starting a winery, Capozzi, and acting as a trailblazer in leveraging the internet to cultivate an audience for his nascent high-end pinot.  He writes a smart, technologically savvy and insightful blog about the issues, personalities and decisions that he makes along the way.  It’s not hard to admire the very obvious good business acumen he has when making decisions for his winery, his baby.  But, he doesn’t let those decisions cloud the bigger picture—to create an enduring successful winery creating world-class pinot noir.  This and more is all evident through his blog. 

Cima Collina and Dover Canyon, both established wineries, write from different approach, both led by female writers of established wineries, they wrap you up in a warmth and memoir-ish dialogue that engages you in the personality and back story of their ventures, creating a connection along the way.

Go vote for your favorite out of this stellar lineup.  All bets are off for the winner, but I have a hunch it may be a dark horse from the three domestic wineries and not the one with the most perceived scale.

For a good batch of posts from Josh at Pinot Blogger check out their Capozzi Winery category found here

For a good batch of posts from Cima Collina check out their archive from October found here.

For a good batch of posts from Dover Canyon check out their main page found here.

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