Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Serious Grape Debuts on Serious Eats

If you are a foodie, you've probably heard of (if not visited and bookmarked) Serious Eats, the award-winning food blog anchored by Ed Levine, Adam Kuban, and a dozen other intrepid souls with contributions from the likes of Mario Batali, Dorie Greenspan, Gina de Palma, and Edible East End's Brian Halweil.

Serious Eats also highlights the work of a number of bloggers, including Paul Clarke of the Cocktail Chronicles, Melissa Hall of the Southern Foodways Alliance, Nick Kindelsperger from The Paupered Chef, Ree who blogs at The Pioneer Woman, and Emily Stone from Chocolate in Context.

As of today the list of contributors includes me, too.

I'll still be here at GWU$20 4-5 days a week, 52 weeks of the year. But every other week or so I'll also have a post over at Serious Eats in a new column called Serious Grape that I'll be sharing with Dr. Vino, Tyler Colman. I'll stick a link here guiding you over there in case you want to check it out. While you are out and about, do check out some of the other great writing and recipes. There's also an active forum if you've been looking for a place to discuss food and wine related issues.

My first post is about wine snobs, and a recent article that generated quite a buzz in the wine blogging world about wine criticism and reviews. Based on this article, my dad is an avowed wine snob--and that's just not so! See what you think, write a comment, respond with your own post and enter the discussion if you feel so moved. Thanks for clicking over to the story, and see you back here when you're done reading.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congrats on the gig. Clicking over there right now!

Edward said...

Deb,

Congrats on the new gig. I enjoyed reading the article and the Stein piece.

I find I actually agree with his premise. A list of ingredients / scents tells you little about the wine.

Just as describing a painting only by mentioning the colours used is pointless.

He is wrong to call people interested in the parts - wine snobs, but I think he is correct in pointing out the limitations of such an approach.

I find my tasting notes though still replete with wanky descriptors, are leaning more to description of the overall impact of the wine. Oddly for the first time I find I have to agree with Gary V.

Dr. Debs said...

Thanks Jill and Edward. I agree with you, Edward--neither a laundry list of flavors nor "comes out fighting" is of great use. It's how a reviewer puts the two together that makes for a really insightful review. What I objected to was the lambasting of people as snobs, and the idea that we should all immediately adopt the Gary V style which is (I would argue) unique to him. I have my share of wonky descriptors (like the Italian diva at the beach remark of last week) but I try to combine them with other information as well. Colors, brushstrokes, texture, lighting, underpainting--that's what goes into a great work of art and we need that same variety in wine reviews, too.