It’s that time of year again, people.

The time when you get to have your say on what constitutes the best of alternative wine coverage on-line. The time for you to vote in the 2012 Wine Blog Awards.

The 2012 WBA finalists have been announced today, and as it has been since the WBA’s inception, that list solicits mixed emotions from me.

I’m thrilled to be a finalist again this year for both Best Overall Wine Blog and Best Reviews On A Wine Blog. The latter is a particular point of pride for me, as reviews have become such a large part of my little corner of the wine universe on-line, and the nod comes despite the fact that not a single numeric value has ever been levied against a wine in a review on this site. I think that speaks to the fact that there really is a place for alternative takes on wine quality, and that the time for wines of context – and reviews with context, with story, with humanity – is quickly coming upon us. But I’ve no idea why everyone insists on separating the name of my blog with spaces when it gets listed in things like this, as if the title needed to be pronounced with tension and gravity, like someone on the bridge of the Enterprise was announcing the countdown to impact of an incoming proton torpedo… “twenty… seconds… to… impact… 1… (space) Wine… (space) Dude…!”

Anyway… I’m equally thrilled to see great writing and fantastic independent wine coverage by friends of mine acknowledged in that list (re-posted below after the jump in its entirety). Congrats to all of the finalists!

I’m not so thrilled that the list fails to include others that I admire (such as Courtney Rich, whose wine pairing photography blog is among the most daring pieces of alternative wine coverage to hit since, well, since wine blogs themselves hit the scene about five years ago… there are others, too many to mention probably…).

I’ve had firsthand experience in how the WBA judging process works, so I know not every great blog will make the finalist cut, and massive kudos are due for Joel Vincent and the team organizing the WBAs; I was on a WBA improvement committee during the last several months, and I debated, conversed, and watched as Joel and the WBA team implemented nearly every one of he great suggestions that came out of that committee (most notably opening up the judging process to the same transparency that we in the wine bog-o-world demand of ourselves and of others).

Enough of my babble – polls close July 26th, so get out there and vote, and make your voice heard! I won’t turn down a vote for me, but I won’t be giving you any free wine if you do throw me a vote (well, not unless you come to my house to drink with me…)…

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My friend Paul Mabray, of Vintank, recently gave a keynote address at an event held in Dijon, France, called “The Perfect Storm: How digital tools are forever changing the way we sell and market wine.”

I didn’t attend (alas), and I’ve no affiliation with the event apart from a random one: its organizer (another friend, Eve Resnick), showed a photo of me when presenting her findings from a recent study of U.S. and Chinese wine bloggers (see inset below – ironically, that picture was presented adjacent to text describing the average wine blogger, and apart from being male I don’t actually meet the rest of the criteria on that slide!).

Anyway, I’ve been beating a similarly-toned drum to the one that Paul has been sounding when it comes to how to approach wine online, so it’s nice to see that Paul’s keynote struck a resonant chord with the attendees in Dijon (with a few tweeting that the figures and ideas Paul presented “blew my mind”).

What I sincerely hope is that Paul’s slide deck strikes a similar chord with wine brands here in the U.S., because the fact is if Paul’s presentation doesn’t blow your mind, then you are not paying enough f*cking attention to what is going on in and around the wine business right now.

Mind-blowingness embedded below for your enjoyment – and if you’re in the wine biz, please do yourself a favor and read EVERY slide; then go out and be awesome. Paul’s deck clearly demonstrates in the included figures alone that the time to debate whether or not your online social presence is important is long, long past. That time is much better spent on testing those online waters, connecting with your consumers, and finding out what does -and doesn’t – work online for you and your brand.

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The most awesome among you who read these virtual pages regularly might recall my brief mention of an encounter with Emeril Lagasse (yes, that Emeril) and other surreal experiences involving live animals and The America’s Cup from Auction Napa Valley 2012 that, taken together, might have constituted the strangest day of my life.

I had promised that the full story would be revealed as the first entry in a new content-creation gig on which I was working, and I’m happy to tell you that article is now live over at WineTasting.com.

While I’ve only penned a couple of pieces for WT, I’m really excited about the gig because they’re backed by wine lovers who also happen to be the founders of 1-800-Flowers, and who have hired some ridiculously smart and talented people (myself excluded – just a hired gun of probably average intelligence here…!) to help them launch both their on-line property and what promises to be an amazing downtown Napa destination.

I’m including some photos below after the jump that didn’t make it into that first WT article, so that you can get a further glimpse into the madness of the day that spawned my travel monologue for them. Enjoy!…

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The conclusion of the recent 2012 Drink Local Wine Conference in Denver was a “taste-off” competition of sorts in which twenty-plus Colorado wine producers each poured two of their offerings, with the media and attendees voting on which of those offerings were the “best” on hand (technically, one producer wasn’t pouring wine, in terms of grape wine, but showcased their Mead – Redstone Meadery, who took the “people’s choice” award for their intriguing Nectar Of The Hops).

As a competition, it was fun but given the levity and structure of the proceedings, it shouldn’t be taken as a be-all, end-all statement on CO wine hierarchy (we are talking about a competition with a quarter of the state’s producers, only pouring two wines each); but gems are gems no matter how or where you happen to uncover them.

I will get to my thoughts on the gems – the winners on the wine side of that taste-off – in just a minute (or three), but first I want to tell you about the clearest winner of the Taste-Off:

Colorado wine.

While I maintain my stance (firmly, I should add) that the region is a “nascent” producer in that Colorado has not fully cracked the code of what grapes to plant where to consistently produce world-class wines, and while the quality levels between (and even among the offerings within each of the) producers is still way too broad (there’s plenty of mediocre wine to be had), I can also tell you emphatically that there seems to be no ceiling for Colorado wine’s quality potential.

Colorado is already making world-class wines – it just happens to be in tiny quantities and can’t be made consistently enough (quite a bit of that being due to extreme vintage variation brought on by the intensity of its continental, high-elevation climate). And while you’re certainly likely to find some real clunkers in CO (its bad wines are epic in their terribleness), the best ones really are gems worth wading through the muck to unearth; in some cases – particularly in the case of one of the DLW Taste-Off winners – CO wine has already arrived…

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