Wine Blogs: Organization? Seal of Approval?

John Olney, over at The Wine Country Club blog (which I found out about via this post on Fermentations), posted a few thoughts on the nature of wine blogs and whether it may make sense to give readers a guide to or a method for identifying "qualified" wine critics/bloggers. His insightful post touches on issues of liability, responsibility, and honesty of blogs.

I think it's tough, really, to imagine a (semi-)formalized wine blogger directory or a "stamp of approval" because, in a way, the freedom to say things without worrying about whether this organization or that organization would agree with you is part of what blogging is all about.

It's definitely true that you can unfairly make a difference in someone's bottom line if you're an irresponsible blogger with a large readership no matter the field you're blogging about, but my personal (and therefore entirely anecdotal) observation has been that the wine blogging community is really more of an unabashed fan of wine rather than a group of folks attempting to unscrupulously make a name for themselves. (I'm certainly not saying that John was accusing anyone of this -- we're referring to hypothetical nefarious blogs after all!)

Worries about "viral marketing" blogging are usually blown out of proportion -- it's been attempted before, and usually a blogger or avid reader who smells something fishy can get to the bottom of it. And any bloggers that actually have a financial or otherwise vested interest in wine on some level will realize what it takes to be respected: disclosure, disclosure, disclosure.

...but, obviously, I could be wrong. Hopefully bloggers continue to prove, in the long run, that they are friends of wine, wineries, and wine drinkers.