The HoseMaster's Guide to the Wine Blog Awards

It's just about time for nominations to begin for the Wine Blog Awards. Oh, sorry, I was yawning. Tom Wark created the American Wine Blog Awards several years ago and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, not even free wine samples, not even admiring comments ("Great post, WineMussolini, always nice hangin' with you."), that wine bloggers like more than giving themselves awards. Even when they're imaginary awards, awards that celebrate a field unlikely to exist in five years, a field whose high qualifying standard to enter is owning a computer, a field with more bombs than an average acre in Iraq. There are eight awards, at this point, to be handed out, and it's hard to think of a less prestigious trophy. A Daytime Emmy? Mens Figure Skating Miss Congeniality Award? Sex with Paris Hilton? But the awards will be handed out anyway, the winners decided by the votes of the courageous judges, who are asked to read countless wine blogs, a task with all the appeal of reading the Congressional Record in Esperanto, and, of course, primarily by the votes of the people. So, rather than simply letting the judges decide which wine blogs deserve the awards, the awards will basically be determined by how effectively each nominated wine blogger works Twitter and FaceBook, and by how many readers he has. This nicely eliminates quality and originality from having anything to do with the awards. Yet, despite that, I'm certain that the cream will rise to the top. Or the turds.


The Wine Blog Awards are modeled on all the awards the professional wine media give themselves. In recent months many of these awards were handed out. I'd like to give a tip of the HoseMaster's nozzle to Antonio "Tony" Galloni for winning the Wine Name That's the Most Fun to Say Award, just edging out James Suckling. Congratulations to Steve Heimoff for winning the prestigious Alder Yarrow Most Times Mentioning My Own Importance Award. And I'd be remiss for not mentioning Alice Feiring's well-earned Henry James Award for the Most Words Going Nowhere.


For those of you getting ready to nominate your favorite wine blog, it won't be long now, be patient, I know I'm on the edge of my coma, here's a quick look at the categories and what they aim to reward.


Best Wine Blog Graphics and Presentation: This is the Miss America Pageant. Content be damned, which one looks the purtiest? Nominees will be asked a few questions like, "If you could speak to the terrorists, what would you tell them about freedom?" and "If you could invite any four people, dead or alive, to dinner, what would you serve to the dead ones?" Then they'll parade around in evening gowns and the one with the cutest butt will win. This, at least, is the easiest category to judge. You don't have to read the insipid prose. It's like deciding who to hire for the mortician opening at Forest Lawn. Whoever can make the brain dead look the most lifelike.


Best Industry/Business Wine Blog: The Dork Award. Endlessly fascinating discussions about grape prices, the Three Tier Distribution System, and wine marketing schemes. Wine bloggers giving this award makes about as much sense as The Wall Street Journal Wine Club. I know when I want wine advice, I turn to the Wall Street Journal. And when I want the latest on the hip and trendy nightclubs I watch Al Jazeera. I'm guessing, just a wild guess, that one blog won't win both of these first two awards.


Best Wine Reviews on a Wine Blog: I'm a bit confused about this. Is this an award for who reviews the best wines? Burgundy and First Growth Bordeaux and SuperTuscans and Lodi Zins? Or for who writes the best reviews? And what about pairing the wines with music or haiku or pictures of kitties? How much weight will the judges give to that? What this award comes down to is the Best Impression of Robert Parker Award. Writing about wines in the most convincing killjoy fashion. Taking the amazing joy and sensual pleasure of sharing a wine with a loved one and turning it into the Best of Roget's Thesaurus. Bloggers blather endlessly about just drinking the wines you like, then they spend their time telling you what wines you should like, what those wines taste like down to the very last adjective, and this is clearly admirable. If you're incredibly self-absorbed.


Best Single Subject Wine Blog: OK, wine blogs are about wine. How many subjects is that? If the blog is about spirits, then is it a wine blog? If the blog is about food, is it a wine blog? And as far as I can tell, every blog is about a single subject--the blogger.


Best Winery Blog: I love winery blogs. They're a lot like winery dogs, only more full of crap. This is a category about marketing, not about information or talent. There are some wonderful blogs written by winemakers (take a bow, John Kelly, Randall Grahm), but that's not what this category is for. This category is for validating the usefulness of blogs as marketing tools for wineries. And if wineries use blogs to sell wine, then blogs must have a purpose! Blogs might actually be worth something. OK, wine bloggers, I've got something important to tell you. Wine blogs will be profitable when they learn to sell what TV has been selling us for fifty years--Sex and Death. Those are moneymakers! Anyhow, the Best Winery Blog is the equivalent of advertising's Clio--the most effective use of lying.


Best Writing on a Wine Blog: Now here is an interesting category, and, essentially, it should be the only category. Only who's going to judge it? And who wants to win? With all due respect to the mentally challenged, it's the Gold Medal in the Special Olympics. It's being the fat guy who comes in sixth on "Biggest Loser." It's scoring 300 on the SAT's. It's winning a limbo contest by going under the pole vault bar. It's marrying Larry King. But, and I'm being serious now, if Samantha Dugan doesn't win for Sans Dosage, the judges need to be sent to Gitmo for a lovely spa treatment.


Best New Wine Blog: You're talented, you're interesting, you've got a great voice, you're very well-behaved, now see if you can crank out endless posts for a year and maybe we'll give you an actual award next year.


Best Overall Wine Blog: For those of you new to the blogging game, this is all about being an insider. Which is why the awards exist in the first place. You have to be part of Hollywood to win an Oscar. They ain't giving one to John Waters. So this award has to go to the wine blog that most closely represents what wine blogging is about--volume, volume, volume. What makes WalMart successful? Volume. What makes Costco the wine powerhouse that it is? Volume. What does Celine Dion have that other singers don't? Volume. Quantity not Quality, that's our motto. So if you aspire to win this award, remember, you have choices. You can write well or you can write often, you can spout wisdom or you can spout your inexperienced opinions, you can be original or you can regurgitate what you're fed. If you want to succeed, move up the latter.

HoseMaster of Wine 2009 Wine Blog Circle Jerk Awards

It's fashionable and damned near required, if you have a wildly successful and famous wine blog, to bestow awards upon lesser wine blogs. I've seen this demonstrated all over the wine blogosphere in recent days; HoseMaster of Wine was even mentioned here and there. I think the BrixChicks gave me something--I think it was indigestion. But it's an honor to be mentioned on another blog--just ask that other blog, he'll tell you it's an honor. You know, there just aren't enough self-congratulatory posts in wine blogdom, if you ask me. And, honestly, when a guy writes a completely useless and uniformed wine blog himself, why wouldn't I be interested in what other blogs he thinks are worthy of my attention! It's the same reason I get my restaurant recommendations from the drive-thru cashier at Burger King. Why I only buy books that feature a blurb from Sarah Palin on the cover and come with their own crayons. Why I only get electroshock therapy from the same doctor as Glenn Beck. It just makes sense.


And since HoseMaster of Wine is clearly in the upper echelon of must-read wine blogs, right up there with Hitler's Wine Diaries and BevMo Sommelier, it's time for me to bestow the Wine Blog Awards of 2009 upon some lucky wine bloggers. If you're one of the lucky ones, be sure to graciously thank me, praise me, and bestow one of your awards on me. So here they are, friends, the HoseMaster's 2009 Wine Blog Circle Jerk Awards.


TOP FIVE NEW WINE BLOGS OF 2009!

Boy, this was really a contentious and tough category. It was hard to narrow it down to only five. There are at least another three hundred that are equally as wonderful as these, but these five struck me as the best and as the ones most likely to garner me some attention for mentioning them. Which is the point of this masturbatory exercise.

Steve Heimoff (www.steveheimoff.com)
First of all, I love a guy who won't allow Tish to comment on his blog! That really helps me feel comfortable. I never liked her anyway. Steve has nicely catapulted himself into relevance from the obscurity of Wine Enthusiast, where wine reviewers go to die. And there are laughs aplenty when Steve goes into comedy mode. Why it's like he's channeling Alex Trebek! Steve has created a wonderful forum for less-talented people to promote themselves while talking about wine issues as fresh as last June's Time magazine. Tish and Steve

Dr. Vino (www.drvino.com)
Tyler Colman (who, in a lovely bit of irony, is to wine as Gary Coleman is to height) has a refreshing approach to wine. He's always right. If he'd just ban Tish from his blog, he'd be perfect. Dr. Vino posts endlessly interesting columns about impossible food and wine matchups. So the concept is sort of like Match.com, with the food playing the part of the loser blogger who just wants to be loved. Why it's an honor just to be able to mention Dr. Vino, an honor he knows he bestows on every reader when they visit his blog to share in his unrivalled hubris.


1WineDude (www.1winedude.com)
You'll be astonished at the Dude's ability to crank out post after post and make them sound exactly like they've been cranked out! This isn't as easy to do as you might think. Something original and interesting tends to slip in accidentally. Not at 1WineDude! Dude keeps it predictable and cliche, which the wine marketing people love! And it's just so surprising that a Social Media darling is so quick to preach about the power of Social Media! Totally fresh and unexpected. Don't be surprised if one day he works for Wine Enthusiast. I don't think Tish is allowed here either--a tip of the cap to the West Coast 1WhineDude, Steve Heimoff.


Mutineer Magazine (www.mutineermagazine.com)
If there is a better argument for saving our trees than Mutineer Magazine, I've yet to find it. Like the endless cocktails it promotes, it's a crappy mix of filler, wasted space and pathetic attempts at hipness. Its cutting edge is as sharp as your Dad's old lawn mower. Want to identify a trend once it's already dead? Here's your guide! Written with the sharpness of Muhammed Ali and the vocabulary of your eight-year-old niece, it certainly makes you wish you were drunk when you read it. Where's Tish when you need her?

Palate Press (www.palatepress.com)
So, you ask yourself, where do I go to find the finest wine writing on the web? Isn't there somewhere I can go to be amused, entertained, informed, engaged? Not here! Palate Press is proudly mediocre, a choir of voices from the School for the Deaf. There's really no sense in surfing wine blogs, spending all that time searching for an original voice, when you can just go to Palate Press and discover how dull the wine blogosphere is with once click of your mouse! Want provocative articles, well-written and compelling? Buy the New Yorker. Want to understand why wine writing today is largely ignored? Then Palate Press is for you. And it's all Tish all the time!


I have many more awards to bestow. It's the least I can do to give a lift up to all the tireless and wonderful wine bloggers out there now that I'm one of the elite and powerful wine bloggers. To all of the recipients, Keep up the good work! And welcome to my world! The world of relevant Social Media! Share the fantasy!

The HoseMaster Presents

Best New Wine Books of 2009


There are hundreds of wine books published every year, and those are just the ones rehashing Parker numbers. "Parker's Buying Guide", "Parker's Guide to the Best Wines in the World", "Parker's Almanac of Wine", "Parker's Encyclopedia of Wine", "Parker's Guide to Composting Parker Guides." The guy is dead and still manages to publish more books than L. Ron Hubbard. With Christmas just around the corner, your HoseMaster has sifted through hundreds of titles and come up with the best wine books of 2009, the perfect stocking stuffers for the wine lover in your life.


Wine Enthusiast's Big Book of Numbers
Editors of Wine Enthusiast

Here is a book filled with surprises. For example, even the cover alone has a major surprise--did you even know Wine Enthusiast had editors? Wow. That's really surprising. This book belongs on every wine lover's shelf. It clearly and lucidly explains every number in the 100 Point Scale, what it means, how it's arrived at and how much money it generates. Here's an excerpt from the number 90:

"90 is a number slightly less than 91 (see next chapter) but far, far larger than 89 (see previous chapter "Bend Over and Take an 89"). It is, however, the least important number in the 90's, and, as such, is often used as a token, a pat on the back for a particularly generous winery (see Appendix entry "How the Top 100 Wines are Chosen"), or as simple hyperbole for a cheap wine that, were it $40 instead of $10, would rate an 87 (see the chapter "Another number that don't mean crap).

I returned to this thoughtful book over and over as I encountered scores I was unfamiliar with. Did you know that 92 actually exists as a score? I don't think I'd ever seen it before. And the chapter on 100 is particularly poignant as it relates the tragic story of 99 (not the agent on "Get Smart") and how its feelings of failure at never achieving three-digithood ended in suicide. There's even a riveting chapter on the prevalence of dyslexia among professional wine critics which explains why so many 89 point wines end up as 98. Highly recommended.


Yarrow Minded Narrow
Alder Yarrow


In a nod to his loyal readers of Vinography, whom he recognizes may be several Brix shy of ripe, Alder Yarrow has written a book in the style of Dr. Seuss that uses no more than fifty different words to explore the wineries of Northern California. This is a lively and simpleminded romp through the vanity wineries of Napa Valley and points beyond. It's Alder, so you know the premise of every winery profile--a brief, sycophantic, press release biography of the winery's owner followed by a brief description of his dream of becoming yet another producer of 200 cases of overpriced wine, and then Alder's glowing review of aforementioned wines, told from his perspective of several years of wine knowledge. But here he's cleverly encapsulated those stories in words even his regular followers can understand. Here's a bit of his profile of Kosta Browne:


Two guys from John Ash
Got their mitts on some cash.

Getting cash for your ash
Is the world's oldest job
And it wasn't that long
Before high numbers from Bob.

It's a place built on Pinots that eliminate frowns
And encourages bloggers to make noses Brownes.

So when Kosta and Browne
Then achieved great reknown
Just two guys that slung hash
Sold their names for big cash.

You can spread ash for cash and they call it pornography

You can kiss ash for wine and they call it Vinography.

I don't know about you, but I can't get enough of this kind of stuff. I'm several dozen IQ points short of 100 myself.


California's Real Wine Countries--From Temecula to Suisun Valley
Seymour Plonk


Wine country guides to Napa Valley and Sonoma County and Paso Robles, ad nauseum, have been done to death. Sure, sure, these are where many of California's best wines come from, but what about all the other places wine is produced in the state? Great wine is highly overpublicized, but the ocean of mediocrity out there gets scant attention. Until now. This lovely coffee table book takes us on a tour of the "real" wine countries of California, the places where it isn't so damned easy to make good wine, where it takes imagination and effort to pretend the wines are palatable--Temecula, Suisun Valley, Lodi, Malibu Mountains... Plonk, longtime blogger and the country's first tastebud transplant donor, provides an overview of these often neglected, but rarely unintentionally, appellations. Here's his take on Lodi:

"What makes the wine so good is the oppressive heat. Where other regions have to work hard to reach 29 degrees Brix, in Lodi that's called "two weeks to harvest." It's a region with many very old vineyards--well, at least they look that way. Sort of like beach bums who don't use sunblock. What George Hamilton is to skin cancer, Lodi is to grape vines."


And I admire the way Plonk is able to spend an entire day tasting in Temecula and not question the existence of God. I wish he'd spent a little more time rating the wines, however, and that he didn't keep repeating the same tasting note over and over again:

"What is this shit?"


These are my top 3 wine books of 2009. Here are a few more titles that you may want to look into, these are the books that just narrowly missed recommendation.


Big, Bloated and Reeking of Cigar: The Marvin Shanken Story
Thomas Mathews


Dead Guys Don't Spit--Ratings from Hell
Robert Mondavi and Robert Parker


Unexplored Back Roads of California Winemakers
Anonymous

The HoseMaster Presents

Christmas Gifts For Wine Lovers


Once Thanksgiving has passed, along with the meal, many people are faced with the annual question, "What do I buy the wine lover in my life for Christmas?" Here is my list of gifts every wine lover would be thrilled to receive this holiday season.

The Riedel "Clueless" Glass

Riedel's stemless wine glasses, the "O" Series, were a big hit among wine cognoscenti. This year Riedel is introducing its newest line of wine glasses, the "Clueless." These wine glasses are designed specifically for people who are "Clueless" about wine. Each set of four glasses comes with a glossy brochure that is filled with factually incorrect information regarding how the "Clueless" glasses can improve the experience of drinking fine wine. "Clueless" wine geeks will quickly be sucked in to the wonders of wine glass "science." Little known "facts" will be absorbed hook, line and sinker.

"Did you know there is a nose map?! Riedel 'Clueless' glasses funnel your fine wine's aroma to just the right set of nose hairs for maximum nasal stimulation--your nose has never been so accurately picked!"

Soon the wine lover on your list will be unable to enjoy his bottle of Marcassin Chardonnay unless it's served in the "Clueless" Sniffin' a Fruit Cocktail Chardonnay tumbler. He just won't be able to enjoy a glass of Colgin Syrah unless that precious nectar comes in a "Clueless" Ten Dollars an Ounce For Napa Valley Jagermeister balloon glass. When it comes to gifts for the Clueless, no one outdoes Riedel!


BevMo's Not Worth Five Cents Wine Club

This Christmas give the wine lover in your life the gift that keeps on taking-- membership in the BevMo "Not Worth Five Cents" Wine Club. From the folks that bring you the wine business' biggest scam, the BevMo Five Cent Sale, BevMo's wine club is the monthly way to discover the various ways large wine retailers can pawn off mediocre wine as "Big Savings!" Each month your loved one will receive two bottles of wine specially chosen by BevMo's large staff of ill-informed employees. One month it might be two bottles of wine from an importer going-out-of-business liquidation sale! Who knew the market for organically farmed Sforzat would dry up? Well, the raisin business' loss is your gain! The next month it might be repackaged bulk wine with a really cute animal label on it, or maybe a hilarious pun! "Vasectomy! Your Pinot Shooting Blanc," or a bottle of white wine with a photo of Billy Bob Thornton on the label, "Rieslingblade." It's two dollar wine, and you only pay another eight bucks for the cute label! Or maybe it's a really famous winery being delivered to your loved one's door by the club, only the appellation listed on the bottle is slightly suspect. Beaulieu Vineyards 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon "BevMo Reserve" can only be fantastic! You'll just have to ignore the tiniest print legally allowable that states the appellation is "Yucca Valley." This is a gift your wine loving friends will never forget, or forgive. All the convenience of BevMo's misleading wine sales in the comfort of your own home.

The Portable 100 Point Scale

There is nothing more embarrassing than being a wine expert and having someone approach you and ask you what score a wine received and you just don't know! It's humiliating. How in the world can you talk intelligently about a wine if you don't even know where it falls on the 100 point scale? You wouldn't talk about a book you'd read if you hadn't read the "Cliff Notes" first! And you call yourself an expert! Now, thanks to research done by our friends at all the major wine publications (not major publications that are about wine--those don't exist), you'll never be stuck in that embarrassing situation again. Just put the bottle of wine in question into the specially constructed 100 point scale and PRESTO the number appears! Just like it appears in the minds of famous wine critics--by magic! And the Portable 100 Point Scale comes with the same guarantee the scales in Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast, yes, EVEN Wine Advocate come with--absolutely none! But the 100 Point Scale should not be used by just anyone--in the wrong hands this powerful weapon can be extremely dangerous to ones long-term mental health.





The Food and Wine Pairing Machine


Wine lovers spend senseless amounts of time wondering what wine to pair with food, and even more wasted hours arguing about it. What do I drink with fresh oysters? Champagne? Muscadet? Lemon Pledge? Hours and hours of their, OK, not-so-precious, lives wasted in the fruitless pursuit of the "perfect" food and wine combination. Well, now those hours and hours can be put to more productive use, perhaps reading pointless wine blogs, because the Food and Wine Pairing Machine takes all the guesswork out of it. It works either of two ways. Pour an ounce or two of the wine you're agonizing over into the Machine and, after a few moments, the exact dish that will perfectly complement the wine is described! How does it work? Inside the machine is a small laboratory that breaks the wine down into its chemical components, those components are quickly analyzed, and then the computer inside searches its comprehensive files of every recipe ever published in Gourmet, Saveur, and Lancet for the right dish! Or, and this may be easier for folks with a large wine cellar, just prepare your meal, insert just a small bite-size portion into the Food and Wine Pairing Machine, and the machine quickly tells you what wine will best accompany your gourmet meal! Imagine the fun you'll have putting a hot dog into the Food and Wine Pairing Machine (Silver Oak, it spits out!), or maybe just a little treat from the litter bag your dog filled while you were out for a walk (Paso Robles Pinot Noir!). Why it's practical, and fun!