Like many in the industry, Ian Smedley first got into wine while studying abroad in Italy. Growing up in Maine, Smedley’s alcohol exposure leaned craft beer over vino—that is, until his host family opened his eyes to something different. During evenings in Tuscany, they would open a bottle of homemade wine with dinner each evening. “I remember really liking it—not just because I was a college kid looking to drink, but for its texture and flavors,” he recalled.

Smedley returned from Italy to Bard College with a new outlook on wine. He upped his bottle budget from single-digits to the $20 mark, which presented a whole new world of opportunities and flavors. Curious to learn more, he took a summer job at a local winery selling bottles at the farmers’ market. By the end of the season, he knew he wanted to make wine a career, though he wasn’t sure how. “I found out about this thing called a sommelier, which potentially meant wine as a career path,” he said. Things changed when he was hired as a busboy at Boulud Sud, the place that would ultimately change Smedley’s career trajectory.

During his first shifts in 2013, he found himself under the oversight of Michael Madrigale, the restaurant’s personality-driven wine director. To this day, Smedley credits Madrigale with creating the gateway for him to learn about wine. “It was his belief in me as a person that really opened the door for me,” he said. In 2016, Smedley briefly left Boulud Sud for a full-time retail gig at Chambers Street Wines, though when a wine director position opened back up within Boulud’s Dinex group, Smedley was the first that the team called. 

He remained on the floor of Dinex restaurants through 2022, including reopening Bar Boulud as its wine director post-COVID. In May of 2023, Smedley was presented with a unique opportunity to oversee the program at COQODAQ, New York’s fried chicken-centric restaurant with the nation’s largest Champagne program. “We know the concept of fried chicken and Champagne to work, both texturally and with regards to acidity,” he said. Alongside founding partner and beverage director Victoria James and director of beverage operations Mia Van de Water, Smedley and the team sought to take things to the next level.

“At the foundations, we decided to offer the biggest Champagne list in America, but we also wanted to have the most options for people,” said Smedley. “We wanted to share the bluest of the blue chips alongside small, unknown growers and everything in between.” That meant making sure to highlight the restaurant’s value-forward “100 sparkling wines under $100” section. “The idea is that you can have someone drinking an old, expensive, amazing cru bottle next to someone drinking something incredibly accessible that they’ve never heard of.” Clearly, this plan worked—approximately 80 percent of the restaurant’s by-the-bottle sales have been Champagne.

Smedley is now the wine director for Gracious Hospitality Management, which includes overseeing the program at COTE Korean Steakhouse in Flatiron. However, he affirmed his commitment to shifting customers’ mentalities around Champagne consumption, particularly at the table. “Chamapgne is an all-meal thing—we’ve always said it, but we’ve done it at COQODAQ,” he said. At the end of the day, he believes it’s about showing people that Champagne is wine, and not a separate category. “Sure it has bubbles, but that’s part of its heritage and existence. COQODAQ offers an exploration of the region, the terroir, and the people who make it. I love Champagne more than I ever did before.”

2020 Adrien Dhondt ‘Les Coullemets’ Le Mesnil-sur-Oger Grand Cru Extra Brut

This might be one of my favorite wines in a very long time. It comes from superstar Adrien Dhondt's 'Le Projet' line, his exploration of single-site Côte des Blancs terroirs from various Grand Cru villages. It is a linear, driven expression, with a pulsating minerality and dense complexity that will only continue to improve. I am always shaken awake upon tasting these wines; their energy bounds rapidly out of the glass, and their vinous depth unfolds over hours of being open. Currently available in its 2020 vintage, which keeps its chalky core underneath a little hedonistic fruit. Like any curious artist, Adrien is constantly shifting focus, and choosing different sites each vintage for Le Projet. I always keep my fingers crossed for another iteration of this lower slope site in Mesnil.

2019 Pierre Paillard Ludes Premier Cru Extra Brut

The Paillard brothers' wines continue to get better and better. I was lucky to know them early in my career, as for a time they made a Cuvée Daniel Boulud in my early Dinex days. They've really amped up their excellence, and are now painting various portraits of different Crus all over the Montagne de Reims (in addition to their continued focus on their Home Terroir of Bouzy). It's often hard for me to pick a favorite, as I believe they show deftness and malleability each vintage: adjusting to what they are given and letting the place speak for itself. That said, 2019 is so structured and stunning, and I really really love Meunier. Their 2019 Ludes 1er Cru is purity distilled down to a racy snap, with lengths to go. I am already very excited about it, and look forward to its life down the road.

NV Chavost ‘Paradoxe’ Brut Nature

We have worked with Chavost's wines since COQODAQ's opening and have always loved their generosity and open, pleasurable texture. Fabian makes wines to be enjoyed now, focusing on minimal intervention and careful, clean farming. Always without sulfites, always Brut Nature. For the first time, he blended together his reserve wines, aged in barrels and casks, and put out my favorite thing he's yet released. It retains the enjoyment, sunshine and quaffability of his wines, but with a little added savor and depth. We have this in a couple different format sizes, only adding to the party of it! Paradoxe is a great example of how Champagne at its core balances time and vintage across texture and evolution to create a little bit of magic.

2021 A. Lamblot ‘Mouvance’ Brut Nature

Bottled with slightly less grams of sugar than the norm, the delicate mousse of Lamblot's wines makes him one of my favorites, a texture I always want to return to. His focus on biodiversity and vineyard care (from vitiforestry to varied other energy-driven choices) only emphasize the artisan eye he uses to make a variety of different wines, many of which are single parcel representations. He also makes cuvée blended across parcels, representing his varied old vines and the terroirs he fabricates into great wines of soul. Mouvance 2021 is one of those wines that somehow encapsulates both yin and yang: it has moments of softness but its fruit is loud; it plays across the palate brightly but its fruit is dark, with brood; it rolls around the palate with ease and softness even while its mineral structure remains hard, etched. There is joy in his art, and every time I taste his wines I immediately seek out more. I feel very lucky to have tasted so many on our COQODAQ Champagne journey.