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Rod Smith

  • List-O-Mania

    Rod Smith

    Have been thinking about wine lists lately.

    My wife rolls her eyes when I ask for the wine list. Not because she thinks I might spend too much (she already knows that!) but because she’ll be deprived of my sparkling conversation while I try to make sense of the offerings, with two things in mind. Numero uno, obviously: is there anything we might want to drink? Numero two-o, with more at stake: is there an intelligent…

  • Parallel Paradigms?

    Rod Smith

              From where I sit the wine world, especially in California, went totally crazy in the 1990s, to the point where it became rather bizarre to me. In retrospect it seems like that might have been part of a general insanity that led inexorably to where we are today. Now, as we seem to be regaining our collective senses, I’m wondering where wine sensibility might be headed.
              That’s not so much a question as a group…

  • THE SEVEN AGES OF WINE

    Rod Smith
    Back again, with pleasure. I enjoyed the discussion of manipulation, although I feel we barely scratched the surface of perhaps the most vital topic of the moment and would like to take it up again at some point. Meanwhile, have been pondering another aspect of our favorite subject.
              I recently braved spiders and bats to get a grip on the shamble of crates and loose glass I call a wine cellar. By the time I gave up I…

  • The Elephant in the Cellar

    Rod Smith
              I’ve enjoyed the Syrah discussion, and am pleased to be asked back for another round. This time, I want to see what the nation’s foremost wine geeks think about an issue that I think is vitally important but never seems to be addressed much beyond eye-rolling shrugs and head shaking.
              This elephant in the room—or, if you will, the wine cellar—is viticultural and winemaking practices that subvertly change…

  • So, Syrah?

    Rod Smith
    SO WHAT’S UP W/SYRAH?
              I’m pleased to have a guest spot on this site. Sommeliers have become a powerful positive force in the wine world and I’m glad to participate in your discourse.
              I’ve been thinking about California Syrah lately, and how disappointing it’s been. More than two decades ago it was so up-and-coming—but it never really got here. The grape and its wines are wine royalty, yet few California…
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