I knew these tastings were “blind”, but this is ridiculous!

Final installment of a five-part series.

I’ve missed quite a lot over these last three weeks. Just about the time I contracted iritis, Dr. Vino was accorded the first ever Best American Wine Blog honors. I would gladly have tipped my hat to him and to the other award winners, but alas! ‘Twas not meant to be.

Today, however, I’ve nearly emerged from this ophthalmic veil, this cocoon of opacity, this seemingly interminable slumber in the snow cave of the slight-sighted. Finally, I can look forward once again to sharing my scribblings, to beating the bloggodrum. To squeezin’ some grapes, dammit!

And so there is much to do, much order to maintain. I may be a little late to the party, but I feel it’s only right to acknowledge my admiration for a number of my fellow vinospheric colleagues. I mentioned Dr. Vino above, whose blog not only won the highest honor in the inaugural American Wine Blog Awards, but also the Best Wine Blog Writing award. Dr. Vino certainly does set a fine example of what a wine blog can be and should be, and he serves well as a role model for all who would choose to follow in his wine-soaked wake. And of the seven total awards, I believe these two particular awards say it all for me. Yep: great writing, great blog. Quite a coup, Doc.

Of course the other five winners ain’t just peckin’ yesterday’s chicken feed. Well deserving of the other AWBA recognition are Steve Bachmann of Vinfolio (Best Single Subject Blog), Josh Hermsmeyer of Pinotblogger (Best Winery Blog), Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV (Best Wine Podcast or Videoblog), Jeff Lefevere of Good Grape (Best Wine Blog Graphics), and Alder Yarrow of Vinography (Best Wine Reviewing Blog). Oh, dear reader, if you value blogs and you value wine, you should read these guys. Subscribe to all of ‘em. Why? Because these gentlemen have transcended the hobbyist aspects of blogging. They are for real. They know their stuff, and they live it, breathe it, and swallow it too. These gentlemen are writers.

Of course, no discussion of the American Wine Blog Awards would be complete without a nod to the wine blogger whose brainchild it was, Tom Wark of Fermentation. Tom, ya really done good, probably more than you know, and in no way that my words can easily express. The vinosphere is no longer a podunk town thanks to you.

Moving on: gosh, what else did I miss? Well, I missed posting about it, but I actually did participate in Open That Bottle Night (OTBN) , which I first became aware of on Farley Walker’s Wine Outlook but was created by Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher, who write the wine column for the Wall Street Journal. The premise of OTBN is simple: don’t wait for a reason to celebrate what you have with that bottle you’ve been saving, just open it and celebrate! For some, it may have been a prize bottle collecting dust and wizened age. For others, it may have been an unopened gift, ready to be opened. Still others, like me, might have wanted to merely try a wine they’d read about, had stored on the rack for a while, and wanted to try.

And so for OTBN I chose to find solace in a Fisher Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Coach Insignia, Napa Valley, vintage 2002. I couldn’t see the wine’s color well, but upon first sniff, I was drawn magnetically by rich berry fruit, a dollop of chocolate, and a sense of import: this was gonna be one goddamn good wine. On first sip, I was suddenly transformed – solace be damned! – and swept away on a magic carpet of grand euphoria, voluptuous and velvety, that lasted and lingered until briefly touching down to entice me for yet another ride. (I mean sip.) Ah, such balance, poise, and power is the mark of but few wines. I may have been partially blind that night (before being hooked on the Fisher, mind you), but I didn’t need heightened senses to compensate; this wine would rock my world on the clearest day.

My score? 19½ Winehiker Points. Available for $70 at bottlenotes.com; worth revisiting for another OTBN rematch in 2022.

Another pleasant surprise over these last three weeks was learning that I’d been added to the AlaWine.com Top 100 Wine Blogs list. To be true, that was the pleasant part. The surprise was in discovering that Winehiker Witiculture had debuted on the list at Number 16. And today, I see the list has been updated and this blog resides at No. 14. Sure as slurpin’ sauvignon, it pays to do your SEO. Thank you, Ken Waggoner!

Lastly, I want to recognize Megan Sonadora at WannabeWino, who not only offered me advice and encouragement through my recent eye affliction (and believe me, Megan knows), but she also became the 100th blogger to link to Winehiker Witiculture.

I’ve come a long way over many paths in recent weeks. I feel it’s only natural to recognize that whether the path leads to award or to reward, it is still the journey that is most meaningful, most enlightening, most desirable. It’s been good, my friends, to know that you’re still along for the ride.

~winehiker

« Part 4: Seeing my way back to the trail

Related posts:

• Now’s your chance to nominate your favorite wine blogger
• The AWBA: more coverage than Disney
• Cool links for Tuesday

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 13th, 2007 at 9:43 pm and is filed under grape squeezins. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.