Awards Season

Food & Wine's annual list of the nation's best sommeliers is one of the few opportunities for wine pros to get their due, and this year's class features a longtime local: Ceri Smith, the owner of Russian Hill wine shop Biondivino and the co-wine director of Tosca Cafe. Smith, who specializes in Italian wine, earned the nod for "an extraordinary, mostly Italian list packed with old vintages, obscure grapes and even good Chianti bottled in fiaschi, those straw baskets of the '70s." Also featured: longtime RN74 somm Eric Railsback, who's now at Les Marchands in Santa Barbara. [F&W]