Only You Can Say

It’s said that this is a time when respect for real expertise is on the wane, its reputation as a source of solutions for whatever ails us under assault. Heaven knows experts have often got us into terrible fixes. In hindsight, we may blame bad outcomes on the work of ‘so-called’ experts. But this could…

Playthings

How many kinds of wine are there? It’s a question I’m often mulling, in part because the answer always seems so appealingly out of reach. The idea that the query could be addressed merely by itemizing the hundreds of official geographic designations enshrined in appellation law (think Sancerre, Sonoma, or Chianti) is frankly laughable. For…