It’s almost 2010, and you know what that means.
It means we need to get in at least one cheesy end-of-year-summary post!
What I decided to do was to completely forgo my personal favorite 1WineDude.com articles of the past year, and instead present the articles form 2009 that garnered the most reaction by YOU, the readers, since you’re what makes the 1WineDude.com wheel go ‘round. The logical way was to pull together the most-commented posts from 2009, which I present below for your recap-ing pleasure.
As for the most-viewed posts, I figured I didn’t have a great way to measure that for the full year, having moved over to a new blogging platform and a new analytics platform in 2009. And more importantly, I didn’t think that measure would be as interesting as seeing which articles you actually felt were worth the contribution of your opinions – now that measure seemed like fun to me.
What did I learn from pulling this list together?
You people seem to love controversy!
9 out of the top 10 most commented posts of 2009 cover controversial topics – from blogger-bashing by wine media big-wigs, to hot topics in the wine-writing/blogging, wine consumption, and wine appreciation, you folks like to state your opinions… and I love ya for it!…
Only 1 of the top 10 (a recent post asking directly for your input) had to do with a relatively tame (but fun!) topic. The rest were all concerned with more controversial topics. You might be thinking “well… duh… of course an incendiary topic is going to get more comments” but I don’t really set out to intentionally drop mega-comment-bombs on 1WineDude.com, and I’m often (very) surprised at the number and quality of opinions expressed in response to the posts here.
In other words, I just enjoy the discourse because 1WineDude.com readers are damn smart, funny, and knowledgeable people.
Will I be posting about more controversial topics in 2010 as a result of this mini-analysis? Probably not.
I like the current 1WineDude.com formula, it seems to be working, and I’m having too much fun to shift gears now. Plus, I really don’t need to piss any more people off than I normally do in the course of a year.
The Top 10 Most Commented 1WineDude.com Articles of 2009
10) 1WineDude in the L.A. Times (More on Wine Competition Controversy)
9) Anthony dias Blue Goes on the Attack Against Wine Bloggers
7) Who Do You Love? (Are Wine Writers Writing for You, or for Each Other?)
6) Will Work for Wine (Alice Feiring & Who Really Killed Wine Writing)
5) 1WineDude TV Episode 8: Masters of the Wine Universe
4) Of Millennial Mistakes and Wine Blogging Blunders
3) Wine Competitions vs. Really Bad Science (or “The Journal of Wine Economics Drops the Cork. Again”)
2) Guess What? You’re White! – American Winemaking’s Diversity Crisis
1) Notorious (Robert Parker is Chasing Shadows) – over 100 comments… yowza!
Here’s to another year of crazy-good dialog together!
Cheers!
Great new approach to an old year end tradition, fab! Keep up the great writing in 2010!
Cheers!
Since I'm a new reader, I only remember two of these, guess I've got some reading to catch up on. Cool way to recap the year. Mental note to self, great for next year. My current top ten would be a little odd, since I've only got 40 posts. LOL.
Josh @nectarwine (twitter)
:-) Thanks. Just keep writing, man – this stuff piles up faster than you'll know what to do with it. One thing I tell people who are blogging is that they should never worry about ideas for content – if you're passionate about the subject, then finding things to write about is the LAST thing that you'll need to worry about.
Cheers!
Thanks for the recount, 1WineDude – very useful to revisit, and some good interesting writing all around. I also noticed you use the LinkWithin widget which directed me to some other writing of yours, so I decided to give a try on my blog too. Also, thank for leaving a comment, please come and visit again soon!
Cheers!
Jury's still on for me on the LinkWithin stuff. Seems to be doing a fair job so far.
Wee Ree wish you much health and happiness always…continue to follow the Tao….When spring comes the grass grows by itself.
Right back at ya!
(belated) Happy birthday, by the way!
1WineDude commentaries aren't found in the wine mags. How else are we going to learn what's really going on in the world of wine. Looking forward to another year of reading the dude. Happy New Year.
thanks – if only they would come to their senses and offer me gobs of money to write columns for them… sigh… :-)
They don't want you, Joe. Wine mags don't tell it like it is and have always avoided any major controversy.
You're are a refreshing change. May not always agree with you, but have come to respect your opinions.
Well, if I can continue to get comments from folks like you, then I must be doing *something* right. Cheers!
I feel so well-rewarded for becoming a reader of your blog a few weeks ago — this is a great end-of-year round-up. I was only going to read one or two of the Top Ten Most Commented On articles, but I couldn't resist reading nearly all of them. Now I feel pretty much caught up on all the important issues in the wine world in 2009! (Or at least the juicy controversies.)And oh, loved the piece on Robert Parker. He's got the same affliction AdB has, I think: musty, rickety old white guy syndrome. No offense to rickety old white guys. But come on, RP and AdB, ease up, no one is trying to defrock you!
Thanks for the kind words! I can confirm that I am NOT trying to defrock any white guys, rickety or not. :-)
Cheers!
9 out of 10 having controversy just means that you're doing a good job of pulling that out of the wine world and getting people to engage in discussion. keep these stories coming in 2010.
Will do, thanks. By the way, I just heard that Robert Parker is really an alien! First blog post of 2010 coming up!
Ok, that's a lie…