Splendid fifth anniversary image from bostonuncorked.com.

The link to the voting page is here.

A. I signed on to Twitter because everyone said that I should use it as a marketing tool to bring traffic to this blog. More traffic may lead to more advertising. No, wait, make that some advertising, any advertising, at least something more than Google ads, which I assume that everyone regards as annoying to the point of invisibility. Those Google ads net me all of $100 annually. Whoa, bring up that Wells-Fargo armored truck now!

Q. And has Twitter brought you more traffic?

A. Not noticeably. Of course I only have 34 followers, so I guess it will take time, you know, slowly building the Irresistible Momentum of a Force of Nature.

Q. We notice that you aren’t following anyone on Twitter. Pour quoi?

A. I tried that for a few weeks, but found the suffocating inanity intolerable. It’s amazing what intelligent, college-educated people will reveal about themselves or the trivialities they so breathlessly report. It’s like reading a Freudian treatise on the madness of crowds via telegraph.

Q. On another subject, do you accept wine samples for review?

A. Let me say this about that. The whole reviewing apparatus — wine, books, music CDs (what’s left of them), household products — depends on review samples. Rare is the publication or writer who possesses the fiduciary prowess to afford paying for the items he or she reviews. Probably 80 percent of he wines I review come as samples from wineries, producers, importers and wholesalers; some of these are sent with prior notice, some I solicit, to fit into a particular theme or post, but most just arrive at the door. Another 10 percent I encounter at trade tastings or similar events, and the remaining five percent I buy.

Q. That being the case, would you state your policy about accepting samples and reviewing the wines for this blog?

A. Of course I will. Let’s practice full disclosure. As I said in the previous entry, yes, I accept wine samples for review, but I accept them on no assumption on the part of whoever sent the sample that I will give a positive review or even any review at all. While it gives me great joy to recommend wines to my readers and share my enthusiasm with them, I am obligated, both by conscience and professional considerations, to dole out negative notices when necessary. I also reserve the right to make fun of, parody or downright deride — without being a total asshole — press releases that are badly written, deficient, vain, pompous and utterly fantastical. You would be amazed how many press releases embody all of those fatal flaws.

Q. On another subject entirely, is it true that when you were a child in Rochester N.Y., you and your older brother were a Cossack-dancing team and you performed on local television?

A. Yes.

Cool question mark image from verticalmeasures.com. Cossack-dancing kid from Koeppel Family Archives.

No, the first problem, as Tom Wark pointed out eloquently on his blog Fermentation yesterday, is that the FTC’s new disclosure rules do not apply to “traditional” print media because they, presumably, exercise more editorial control over their material and coverage than the rank amateurs of the blogosphere. So publications like Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast and Wine & Spirits, which receive untold thousands of bottles of wine free every year, do not need to disclose that fact to their readers, while a first-time wine blogger, who might feel grateful for a few review samples, must do so. This is a situation for which the phrase “The Double Standard Stinks” was invented.

The second problem is that the drafters of the new FTC guidelines don’t seem to know a hawk from a handsaw when it comes to the difference between a review and an endorsement. The report expresses the principle this way:

“For example, a blogger could receive merchandise from a marketer with a request to review it, but with no compensation paid other than the value of the product itself. In this situation, whether or not any positive statement the blogger posts would be deemed an ‘endorsement’ within the meaning of the Guides would depend on, among other things, the value of that product, and on whether the blogger routinely receives such requests. If that blogger frequently receives products from manufacturers because he or she is known to have wide readership within a particular demographic group that is the manufacturers’ target market, the blogger’s statements are likely to be deemed to be ‘endorsements,’ as are postings by participants in network marketing programs.”

Obviously the FTC equates positive reviews with “endorsements,” as if bloggers were celebrity basketball players on billboards being paid hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to put the force of their internationally known, outsize personalities at the service of athletic shoes and energy drinks. (If only, right?)

A review or critique of anything — book, musical recording, an art exhibition or theatrical performance, a product such as an automobile or a dishwasher, or a bottle of wine — is (or should be) an assessment and evaluation based on knowledge, experience and judgment. For the reader, the benefit lies in the information and analysis upon which to base a decision, to go see that play, to read that book, to purchase that bottle of wine. This result is not the same as an endorsement, in which a celebrity is paid to mouth words conceived by a copy-writer from a marketing or public relations firm. A review is not an advertisement or press release for the object or performance or entity in question.

Yet, annoyingly, the new FTC guidelines refer, again and again, to reviews on blogs as endorsements and to companies that supply products to bloggers for review as advertisers. The case seems devastatingly clear: If I were sent a review copy of a book by a publisher and wrote a review that was published in a print journal or newspaper, the FTC would regard it as a review; if I wrote that review, however, and placed it on my blog, it would be regarded by the FTC as an endorsement for the book, going on the supposition that my blog lacks traditional “editorial responsibility.” And notice, in the quotation from the guidelines above, that the bigger the audience for the blog, the more likely that a review will be considered an endorsement. This is the sort of obtuse reasoning from which Circles of Hell are fashioned.

It’s possible that these guidelines — only a small portion of the 81-page document that focuses primarily on television and magazine advertising — were deemed necessary by the FTC because of the bloggers who review a variety of mainly household products only in a positive manner. Well-known examples of these are the “mommy bloggers” Katja Presnal at skimbacolifestyle.com and Christine Young of FromDatestoDiapers.com. As Tim Arango wrote yesterday in The New York Times about Christine Young, “If she doesn’t like a product, she simply won’t write about it.”

Now I’m not telling my Fellow Wine-Bloggers to pick out a bottle of wine and kick it in the teeth just for fun, but I will say that giving only positive reviews does not build credibility or a reputation for objectivity. In fact, writing only positive reviews creates the impression that all you’re doing is, yes, endorsing products without engaging a balancing critical sensibility. And providing negative or even not wholly positive reviews is a boon for your readers; doesn’t it make as much sense to warn them away from mediocrity as to extol what is superior?

The FTC guidelines for bloggers take effect on Dec. 1, though the enterprise is fraught with ambiguity. If I write a post in which I review 12 wines, must I include a disclaimer for each wine or a blanket disclaimer for the post? Or is it all right to include a permanent disclaimer for the blog that covers all posts and all wines? The FTC hasn’t made that clear. What is clear is that in the next few months the sort of confusion and consternation that leads to lawsuits will reign.

The satisfaction of winning is immense, of course, but I feel the sense of honor more keenly knowing that I was competing with some of the best blogs and best writers in the wine blogging realm. What we share is a love of wine, an obsession for educating and an irresistible attraction to the power of language.

This award means that readers find what I do and how I think about and write about wine valuable, thereby entailing the responsibility for me to continue performing up to the standard I have set and that you, my readers, expect. I will, I promise, keep at it, daily, weekly, and so on. I mean, I have a back-list of wines to write about now that I need to jump into, for all our sakes!

Tremendous thanks must be offered to Tom Wark at Fermentation: The Daily Wine Blog, who conceived of the American Wine Blog Awards three years ago, created the necessity for them, nurtured the concept and shepherded it to completion. Next year, he turns administration of the AWBA over to OpenWine Consortium, which was one of this year’s sponsors. The others were Riedel Crystal and Mutineer Magazine. The gratitude of all the nominees, finalists and winners goes to these organizations.

So, back to work.

Thanks for the support!

The American Wine Blog Awards are organized and hosted by Tom Wark at Fermentation: The Daily Wine Blog. Sponsors are Riedel Crystal, OpenWine Consortium and Mutineer Magazine, which will announce the winners in its April/May issue, scheduled to hit newsstands on March 31.

Well, it’s not that I’m misanthropic, antisocial or stand-offish (here LL would chime in with “Well, you’re a little stand-offish”), but I don’t have time for it. Sure, I joined Open Wine Consortium when it was launched. How many times have I been on the site? Um, maybe once. Twitter wine tastings? The monthly wine book review? All worthy endeavors, I’m sure, but I don’t have time for them.

I mean, how do people carve the temporal and psychic space to chat about wine and exchange opinions, all quite helpful, I warrant, when I can barely find time to taste wine and make notes and keep up with this blog? I mean, I’m trying to do 15 to 18 posts a month, and my job as a full-time journalist at my newspaper and keep up with our five dogs and two cats and the puppies we foster for rescue groups and practice the piano, because I’m taking lessons again for the first time since I was in college (and this is a whole other story) and all the various other jobs, chores, duties and pleasures of what we call life. Yard work. Reading and sleeping. Keeping up with some favorite blogs. Which, I’m sure, everybody else does too. I wouldn’t deny it.

But I sit at a computer at work five days a week and then I sit at a computer at home doing research and writing this blog, and I’ll tell you the truth, if the choice is between eating a dinner that LL or I cooked (or we cooked together) and drinking a really good (or great) bottle of wine or maybe trying a couple of wines, and the candles are lit and music is filtering through the air and the dogs lie about us on the floor in various attitudes of slumber, I say, if the choice is between that or sitting at the keyboard in the lurid light of the computer screen social networkiing about a bottle of wine with someone I don’t know — well, do I even have to say what my choice would be?

So, I’m not trying to be a jerk or a snob. Go ahead and social network about wine all you want. If that’s a valuable use of time for you, have at it.

But count me out. I have too much work to do.

The box clearly held one bottle of wine. When I opened the box and saw the single initial “R” on top of the dove-gray capsule, I thought, “Ah ha, my Rockaway.” Indeed, that was the wine.

If you go anywhere near blogs that concern themselves with wine and the wine industry, you cannot have escaped, at the end of August, reading about the controversy surrounding the Rockaway Cabernet Sauvignon 2005, Alexander Valley, Sonoma County. This limited-edition, single-vineyard cabernet is a separate project under the aegis of Rodney Strong Vineyards, owned by Tom Klein. It’s not actually the wine that’s controversial — everyone who writes about it loves it — it’s the manner in which it was introduced.

This will be a brief recap, since I and many other bloggers wrote about these issues extensively two or three weeks ago. The gist is that a well-known wine blogger conceived the notion that it would be a good test of the influence of the concept of blogging about wine if a number of bloggers all wrote about the same wine within the same time period. Arrangements were made with Rodney Strong Vineyards to supply bottles of the as-yet unreleased debut vintage of Rockaway to the bloggers, with the stipulation that if the bloggers accepted the sample they would post something about the wine — not necessarily a review — to their blogs within a certain number of days. The project would give these bloggers a chance to write about or review an important wine before samples even went to the mainstream wine media. Who could resist?

The problem is that most of the bloggers, though all thoughtful and well-intentioned people, neglected to mention in their posts about the stipulation to publish within a set time-period. This part of the deal seemed unsavory, unduly influential to other bloggers, Wines & Vines ran a story which was picked up by the blog Vinography, and then Tom Wark at Fermentation issued a stunning denunciation of the bloggers who had participated in the experiment, accusing them of lacking ethical judgment.

Perhaps an element of rushing to condemn before the facts were all in place entered this controversy, as well as surprising naivete on the part of the bloggers who participated in the project. Anyway, there was a huge stink in the world of wine blogging, angry and sarcastic words were issued, flinging-down-the-gantlet positions were taken, feelings were hurt and relationships, perhaps a few, may have been damaged irreparably. Yes, I had my say, too, a bit shrill at first and later, I hope, mre temperate.

But, hey, here I am with my bottle of Rockaway 2005. Do I mind that I didn’t get my Rockaway in that first, brave new wave of bloggers’ samples? Do I mind that the Wine Spectator received its bottle before I did? Nah, we all move to different rhymes, rhythms and reasons.

Rockaway ’05 makes an impressive package. Obviously part of the $75-price-tag goes to cover concept and design elements and the heavy bottle with high, sloping shoulders and deep punt, the sort of bottle to which all high-end cabernets aspire. No paper labels here; all text is embossed on the glass, and etched into the circumference, about two-thirds the way up, is a representation of the lines of hillsides and strata that define the vineyard.

Unmentioned by most of the bloggers that first reviewed Rockaway ’05 is the fact that the alcohol content is a soaring 15.4 percent. Such a number is mere child’s-play for a zinfandel, but it’s unusually high for a cabernet. The test is in the balance.

Meanwhile, life goes on, the big fish eat the little fish, the days dwindle down to a precious few and I’m going to wait a week or two before opening my bottle of Rockaway 2005. It’s always a good idea to give a wine a chance to settle down and sort itself out after a long journey by airplane and truck. We’ll probably drink it with a grilled rib-eye steak; it sounds as if it’s that kind of wine. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I borrowed the Rockaway image from Dr. Debs; I hope she doesn’t mind.