MWGblog

While one of our partners was off in New York accepting our James Beard Award, the rest of the GrapeRadio crew attended Auction Napa Valley 2008. This is the wine event of the year in Napa and GrapeRadio is pleased to be able to cover it for the 3rd year in a row.

This event is put on by the Napa Valley Vintners and as their website states: 700 Guests, 500 winery owners and winemakers, 250 auction lots, dozens of parties, all to be enjoyed within 68 hours. Once again, it was an amazing event!

As far as working conditions go – this is about as good as it gets! Non-stop parties and some of the best food and wine in the world. We worked hard gathering tons of interviews and the highlight, as always, was the gala auction event on Saturday evening. Jay Leno served as host again this year and it included a moving tribute to Robert Mondavi who passed last May.

We made sure to get interviews with all the movers and shakers attending including even Oprah. I’d like to thank everyone who welcomed us but the list is long, between the group we probably attended over 20 separate events hosted by countless wineries. That said, special thanks goes to Departures Magazine and American Express who allowed us unprecedented access as well as the Tudal Family Winery who graciously hosted us at their enormous vineyard home. (We lived like kings, this place is incredible!)

I’m convinced I’ll be sweating pure Cabernet Sauvignon all week during my workouts. Best of all, $10.3 Million was raised for local Napa charities! Thanks again to all. Can’t wait for next year!

Along with my partners at GrapeRadio, I am excited to annouce that we have won the 2008 James Beard Award in the category of webcasting!

The James Beard Foundation Awards are the nation’s preeminent honors for culinary professionals. Often referred to as the “Oscars of Food and Wine” more than 60 awards are given out each year in the categories of cookbooks, restaurants and chefs, design and graphics, broadcast media, journalism, and achievement. Award winners are selected by their industry peers, with more than 600 culinary professionals involved in the voting process. This year’s award ceremony in New York was hosted by Kim Cattrall and Bobby Flay and other winners include such name as Mario Batali, Tom Colicchio, Padma Lakshmi and Top Chef.

Thank you to all of our fans who have given us such great support over the years.

Click the image below to see our video that won the award: Stewards of the Land

It has certainly been a busy week for award related announcements at GrapeRadio. This morning it was revealed that GrapeRadio is a recipient of the 2008 American Wine Blog Award in the best podcast or videoblog category.

Just as with last week’s announcement of nomination for the James Beard Foundation Award, my congratulations once again go out to my hard working partners at GrapeRadio. Great work guys!

Congratulations to my partners in Grape Radio for making #11 in Food & Wine magazine’s “Become a WIne Expert in 28 Days.”

One of the podcasts I helped create, Grape Radio, has just been ranked as the number 7th most popular wine blog. As far as I can tell it is the top rated site in the list that is a podcast. My partners in Grape Radio are doing a terrific job and this is a well-deserved honor.