The Wine Blog Awards have been given out at the Wine Bloggers Conference since the first conference in 2008, but when Mutineer Magazine took over presenting them…well the production values went up a notch–like all the way to 11. Once again tonight, Alan Kropf of Mutineer Magazine announced the winners of this year’s wine blog awards.

This included video and a trumpet call. I was talking with Alan about next year’s wine blog awards.

And we’re talking fire dancers, art cars, and more…

Best New Wine Blog went to Chasing the Vine by Lauren Mowery who I met on the pre-excursion trip from Seattle to Lake Chelan AVA and the rest of the way to Penticton. This is a newer category and it’s great to honor the newer bloggers, even if they are experienced writers and photojournalists  like Lauren (who like me also attended the conference on a scholarship –thanks again scholarship committee!).

Best Original Photography or Video on a Wine Blog went to The Journey of Jordan by Lisa Mattson; she also won Best Winery Blog:. She does a great job (I love this Gangnam style parody) and more to promote Jordan. I was all set to feature a photo of Chris Watkins of the Ridge 4488 blog winning because I was sitting next to him and I love the Ridge blog but I also do appreciate what Lisa is doing for Jordan (hey I published one of her videos!)

Best Industry/Business Wine Blog: The  Wine Curmudgeon by Jeff Siegel

Best Wine Reviews on a Wine Blog: Bigger Than Your Head – Author: Fredric Koeppe  I was rooting for Hawk Wakawaka because I love her writing and comics and reviews. Her writing has heart and touches my heart. This year she was nominated in three categories (which may be a record and which may have split her vote) and I bet she wins next year. Check her out!

Best Single Subject Wine Blog: Washington Wine Report – Author: Sean Sullivan

Best Blog Post of the Year  and Best Writing On a Wine Blog: went to “Lo Hai Qu The Death of Wine Critics” by  The HoseMaster of Wine aka Ron Washam

Best Overall Wine Blog Terroirist by David White which won best new blog two years ago.

Read more about the process by which these winners were chosen.

The process begins with the public nominating blogs which takes place over a few days. About 500 blogs or posts were nominated this year. Then judges narrowed it down and we all voted–again in a brief window of time. The public’s votes weighed in 50% and the judges were weighted at 50%.

The inside skinny though is that folks can and do suggest which of their posts that they’d like to see nominated that were written in the previous year. (And next year that is something that I intend to do! If you’d like to know which of my posts I think are the best, go here.)

UPDATE June 10, 415pm: Here’s a link to the nominees–all worthy of your time.

There you can see that Lilyelaine Wakawaka was nominated in three categories and that Ron Washam was also nominated in three categories. In some of these categories, they went head to head. In one category, best wine writing on a wine blog, The Hosemaster had two nominated posts, one of which won. So you could say he had three nominations or four, depending on how you look at it. Hope this clears things up. Obviously I was wrong in saying that Elaine had a record number of nominations. I still think it’s mighty impressive considering that only last year she was nominated for Best New Wine Blog.