Over 200 entries for first Born Digital Awards

Pleased to see that these awards have taken off, attracting entries from a number of countries and hope that the entries will be of high quality. 

Press release:

'The inaugural Born Digital Wine Awards 2011 have proved an immediate success, with in excess of 200 submissions, coming from 16 different countries across the world.

The Born Digital Wine Awards (BDWA) are the brain-child of Vrazon, a company specialising in Social Media in the drinks industry and a fusion of Catavino (Ryan and Gabriella Opaz) and Thirstforwine (Robert McIntosh).

The aim of the awards is to give value to writers and videographers who are most successful at creating wine content online – it must be “born digital” to qualify – ie be published first online.  The Awards are international, with entries welcome from around the world and in any language. The criteria for entry are straightforward and the categories are as follows:

Best Investigative Wine Piece

Best Editorial Wine Writing

Best Wine Tourism Feature

Best Wine Themed Video

Best Winery Self-Produced Content

The content must have been published during 2010; the maximum for written pieces is 3,000 words and for videos, 10 minutes.  The winner of each category receives 1,000 Euros. While in future years there will be a fee to enter in order to cover administration costs, Vrazon has elected to waive this fee in the inaugural year. 

The panel of judges comprises of leading figures both in wine journalism and general publishing, renowned here in the UK and internationally:

Jancis Robinson MW

Evan Schnittman

Elin McCoy

Patrick Schmitt

Robert Joseph

Hervé Lalau

“Online publishing of wine content, whether it be it video, blogging, twitter, or one of many other platforms, is exploding right now. We feel that the combination of having such a high number of quality entries in our first year and the support of such high calibre judges shows that there is a real need to recognise wine journalism which uses different platforms,” explains Gabriella Opaz.

The short list will be announced on 1st May, with the winners being announced on 18th May on The Access Zone at the London International Wine Fair.

For further information, please contact: contact@borndigitalwineawards.com

Or Dillon Morrall victoria/alison@dillonmorrall.com'