Book club, and wine blog awards, and new sites--oh, my!

There's a lot going on in the world of wine blogs, so I thought I'd catch everybody up on the news.

First, a reminder: next Tuesday, February 26, will be the first meeting of the Wine Book Club. Our fearless leader, David McDuff of McDuff's Food and Wine Trail, will be leading our online efforts to post reviews and generate discussions about Vino Italiano! by Joseph Bastianich and David Lynch. If you've read all or part of the book we hope that you will post your reactions on Tuesday by leaving comments on David's blog, on the Wine Book Club sites on Shelfari or Facebook, or posting on your own blog if you have one. Stumped about what to write? David has posted a fantastic set of questions to get you started. The questions had me thinking about what I'd read in the book in new ways, and I'm looking forward to bringing all those thoughts together next week--and to hearing what other people thought about the book, too.

Second, Tom Wark has the put out the call for nominations for the 2008 American Wine Blog Awards. This is the AWBA's second year, and there are is a new category (Best Business Wine Blog), and a slightly modified voting method (70% popular vote, 30% panel of judges). Tom does a terrific job running these awards, and they provide a great opportunity to shine a spotlight on the wine blogosphere. When you reach Tom's site you will see a set of easy buttons in the right sidebar directing you to nominations in the various categories, which include Best Wine Blog, Best Wine Blog Writing, Best Graphics, Best Business Wine Blog, Best Winery Blog, Best Wine Review Blog, and Best Single Subject Wine Blog. Everybody gets three nominations per category, so think through your favorite wine reads and if you don't see one of them mentioned in the comments/nomination area you can make them a nominee simply by mentioning the blog's name.

Third, fellow blogger John G. from Quaffability has a new blog: the Web Tasting Room. It's a great new format: a combination of video blog, on-camera tasting, discussion with a winemaker, and wine store that is linked directly to the wineries involved. I really liked seeing someone taste the wine and talk to the winemaker about it at the same time. It was like being a fly on the wall in a tasting room. Kudos to John G. for coming up with something new. Head on over, check it out, and you'll probably end up signing up for the feed like I did.

I think that's everything. Have fun cruising around the blogosphere, and see you back here tomorrow.