The Born Digital Wine Awards have officially announced their submission guidelines and criteria.

This is a very exciting award, and I’m so happy to see it moving forward at a healthy pace. One of the coolest parts of the BDWA is that it recognizes individual videos and pieces of writing. That means that the awards can go to busy winemakers who have time to do one cool video or post but who don’t have time to run a blog with great content year round.  Furthermore this inaugural year is free.  You can submit entries at no charge.  And there’s a prize.

Now, I was planning on flooding them with submissions from other Languedoc Roussillon producers, but it turns out you have to submit your own work.  So I will have to settle for strongly encouraging you to enter your own work.

I STRONGLY recommend you enter some work.  I would absolutely love to see the Languedoc Roussillon take over the shortlist of finalists and even win one of these categories!

You might be thinking it’s weird that I’m encouraging people to compete against me.  Well.. on the one hand, I’m weird.  On the other hand, through a rather unexpected turn of events, most of my web work doesn’t meet the criteria of eligibility.  Most of the Love That Languedoc videos are longer than 10 minutes.  My book (Wines of Carcassonne: The Cabardes AOC) is longer than 3000 words. Some of my work like the Complete Map of AOC Cabardes aren’t really text or video, and there’s no category for apps or maps this year. And some of my more popular videos were first released before 2010.  So most of what I do can’t even compete.

Despite my initial disappointment about this discovery, it’s probably a good thing. I honestly don’t know how I would have narrowed down my body of work to choose a submission. These criteria actually narrow it down for me to the dirt tasting and the fruit thief. Which are some of the most visited articles posted on this site in 2010 anyway. I should probably take a hint from that!

People like videos under 10 minutes that have almost nothing to do with wine. 😀

So to summarize, please consider entering your own writing and video!  Let’s get some Languedoc Roussillon in the Born Digital Wine Awards.

There’s really no winning with these fruit-picking neighbors. Dudes are just totally indignant.

I walked up on this guy taking my figs and there was a wicker basket on the ground by one of the trees. So I took the basket and started walking off. And he got incensed! He can take my fruit but I can’t take his basket?

Here is an English summary for those who don’t know French or stream video. Although dumb-looking facial expressions are sort of an International language.

He tries to explain that he didn’t know who the trees belonged to despite the huge orange building that stands by these trees. Obviously, the basket analogy went over his head.

He also tries to justify his action by saying that he’s been stealing the fruit here for years.

He asked what I expected of him and I explained that I wish people would at least ask for permission before romping through our fruit trees. So he eventually slows down and asks for permission. And I kindly give him back the kilo+ of figs he had collected. He then asks if he can pick more and I say that he can take what’s already picked but if he wants to pick more he should do us a favor by bringing some to us. This too seems to upset him greatly.

He complains that he has no fruit trees at his home and that is why he takes ours. I ask him if he has any furniture I can borrow when he’s not using it. Also, this is apparently not comparable in the man’s mind.

He then marches off. I ask him his name and he says it’s Rodriguez Garcia. Either that’s a pseudonym or he’s actually named after the inventor of the laryngoscope.  Either way, it’s the perfect place to end this story.

Epilogue – I followed him off the property and he went to my neighbor’s vines. Upset that I was following him, he asked me if these fig trees in the distance belonged to me too. I said they don’t belong to me, but they belong to somebody. And that upset him too. I really wish I hadn’t given him any of the fruit back. Such a jerk.