Photo by chatirygirl

Photo by chatirygirl

​"Where's the Best Wine List category this year?" Evan Turner wanted to know as he poured me a BrewDog Punk IPA last night at Branch Water Tavern's quiet bar.

I was momentarily caught off guard. Had we not included a Best Wine List category in this year's Best of Houston® awards? Indeed, when I thought about it, we had not.

Last year, that prize went to Catalan -- this year's winner for Best Restaurant, coincidentally -- which also took the award in 2007 and 2008 (with Brennan's winning in 2006 before the Antonio Gianola era ushered in a fantastic few years of wine at Catalan).

So why no award for Best Wine List this year?

The simple answer is that categories change from year to year. For a few seasons, something like tapas will be so omnipresent that it necessitates a category all on its own. Perhaps, after a few years, the tapas trend fades and pierogie takes over as the next big dish. The next thing you know, there's a Best of Houston® category for Best Pierogie.

And sometimes categories are simply dropped for sake of brevity or simply because we decided to include some fresh new categories and had to make cuts. I don't know the exact reason that Best Wine List was dropped this year, but I'm curious to know:

• Which categories do you think we missed this time around?
• Which would you like to see in next year's Best of Houston® issue?
• And which ones do you think should be dropped like a bad habit?

Sound off in the comments section below.