What Constitutes “The Best Wine Blog”?

How does someone judge a wine blog? How does one assess what constitutes the “best”, “the most creative” or “the most popular or social” blog? Are there certain criteria I should abide by, tools I should be aware of, or even a base knowledge of should have in order to be a fair and an objective judge?

This was the central question we struggled with at 10am yesterday morning as we judged 18 non-commercial Catalan wine blogs in the first ever DO Catalunya Wine Blog Competition. Five judges comprised of two Internet wine marketers, Ryan and I (counting as 1 vote); the President of the Catalan Association of Sommeliers; a freelance programmer from Barcelona; the Director of DO Catalunya; and a gentleman from INCAVI, who casted his vote previous to the meeting; gathered together around a large wooden table in the DO Catalunya office to find “the best Catalan wine blog”. With a folder listing the author of the blog, the address of the blog and the author’s description as to why he/she should win the competition, we sat for two hours debating and discussing who should win and why.

What’s curious is that it appeared as if only Ryan and I had a firm understanding as to what constituted a blog from a technical point of view. There was little in the way fully grasping the significance of RSS, comments, backlinks, etc., nor was there much comprehension as to the varying types of wine blogs (retail, winery, journalistic) or the diverse types of audiences a blog could aim for. There was an understanding of what good wine writing is, but as we all know, wine writing and wine blogging at times can be very different things.

Can one judge a wine blog if you don’t understand the mechanics of a wineblog?

The organizer’s argument was that each judge brought a different expertise to the table, allowing them the ability to critic everything from a wine blog’s content to its construction. Therefore, a wine expert could judge whether the content is good or not good, as opposed to its design or construction. Personally, I question this perspective, because if you don’t understand what a blog is, you cannot know that 20 exceptional posts written in 1 year doesn’t constitute an “exceptional” blog. You cannot know that exceptional posts that don’t allow comments, that don’t have links, or that don’t have contact information readily available to the readers might have some issues to iron out before being deemed exceptional. A blog is more than its content! Equally true, a graphic designer could judge a blog’s design, but what about its wine knowledge? Crappy looking blogs may still make great wine insights?

Additionally, what does the “best Catalan wine blog” mean? Should it only be written in Catalan? Should it only speak of Catalan wines? Should this blog have a certain number of months or years behind it to show its authenticity? Should the blog have a certain number of comments, backlinks, PR score or posts? Is it required to have pictures, video, podcasts; and if so, how many per post?

Clearly, if we have learned anything afterh this year’s grumbling over Tom Wark’s American Wine Blog Awards, we would know that the process of judging is not as black and white as we might want it, or imagine it, to be. Just take a glance at the discussion on the Open Wine Consortium, where you can read about the endless frustrations over categories to be judged, who judges and the validity of a wine blog competition itself.

In a culture that is just starting to dive into the online world, and moreover social media, these questions will become more prevalent as more groups decide to host their own wine blog competitions.

What do you think? Is there an imperical measure, or is it all subjective?

Gabriella Opaz – www.catavino.net

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]