Randy Caparoso:
My blogs
- about randy caparoso
- Organic Wine and Food Matching
- Bottom Line of Restaurant Wine Sales
- what they're saying about randy caparoso...
- Culinary Wine & Food Adventures
- Culinary Wine & Food Matching
- The Wandering Sommelier
| Occupation | Wine Journalist; Wine Country Photographer; Restaurant Wine Consultant |
|---|---|
| Location | Lodi, California, U.S. Outlying Islands |
| Introduction | "I fought against the bottle," as Leonard Cohen wrote, "but I had to do it drunk." Randy Caparoso is a full-time wine journalist/photographer living in Lodi, California, and the author of "Lodi! The Definitive Guide and History of America's Largest Winegrowing Region" (2021). In another life, he was a multi-award winning restaurateur, starting as a sommelier in Honolulu (1978 through 1988), and then as Founding Partner/VP/Corporate Wine Director of the James Beard Award winning Roy’s family of restaurants (1988-2001), opening 28 locations from Hawaii to New York. Accolades include Santé’s first Wine & Spirits Professional of the Year (1998) and Restaurant Wine’s Wine Marketer of the Year (1992 and 1998). Between 2001 and 2006, he operated the Caparoso Wines label as a wine producer. For over 20 years, he also bylined a biweekly wine column for The Honolulu Advertiser (1981-2002). He currently puts bread (and wine) on the table as Editor-at-Large and the Bottom Line columnist for The SOMM Journal, and spend most of his time as freelance blogger and social media director for Lodi Winegrape Commission (lodiwine.com). |
| Interests | Besides wine, food, Vietnamese coffee and sleep: kids and grandkids; San Antonio Spurs; mysteries, thrillers and the occasional sci-fi or fantasy fiction |
| Favorite Movies | There Will Be Blood, Ghost Dog; Ghost World; The Age of Innocence; The Music Man (1962 version); Kill Bill (Vol. 1); Monty Python's Life of Brian; Eat Drink Man Woman; Der Blaue Engel; On the Waterfront; East of Eden; Best Years of Our Lives; The Big Lebowski, About Time |
| Favorite Music | Timeless jazz (Billie, Louie, Duke, Ella, etc.); timeless rock (re Pretenders, Beatles, The Who, Sublime, Beachboys, etc.); men with scratchy voices (Cash, Dylan, Cohen, Haggard, Reed, etc.); women with even deeper, scratchier voices (Cat Power, Holly Golightly, Holly Cole, Dietrich, Cline, Springfield, Nico, Feist, Peyroux, Krall, et al.), Hawaiian; Cajun-Zydeco; guajira; calypso y bomba; early reggae |
| Favorite Books | Nabokov's Ada and Lolita; Borges' Ficciones and Labyrinths; Tanizaki's The Makioka Sisters; Tolstoy's Anna Karenina; Block's Hit Man series; Chandler's The Big Sleep; MFK Fisher's Consider the Oyster; Lynch's Adventures on the Wine Route; Herbert's Dune; Thurber's My Life and Hard Times; Barthelme's Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts; Lynda Barry's The Good Times Are Killing Me; Kate Atkinson's Life After Life |