Washington, D.C
William Simons of Albi is The MICHELIN Guide Washington, D.C. 2024 Sommelier Award Winner
Congratulations to William Simons of One MICHELIN Star Albi, MICHELIN Guide Washington, D.C. 2024 Sommelier of the Year winner, presented in partnership with Franciacorta!
Meaning “my heart” in Arabic, Albi is inspired by heartfelt flavors originally cooked by Chef Michael Rafidi‘s grandparents, who immigrated to the U.S. from Palestine. Brilliantly complementing the hearth-fired cuisine, Advanced Sommelier (CMS) William Simons serves as the restaurant’s wine director, overseeing a selection filled with fantastic gems.
In his role, Simons balances a sense of education and fun. The menu is sprinkled with historical anecdotes like early winemaking in Armenia, as well as wine quotes from people like Freddie Mercury. He tells guests, “Sauvignon Blanc can be a bit like George Clooney when he was on The Facts of Life, and he was gawky and awkward. But when we blend it with sémillon, now you’re dealing with George Clooney from Oceans Eleven.”
We spoke with him to learn more about his wine list and his own wine journey.
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How were you introduced to the world of wine?
My joking answer is that I read too much Jack Kerouac in high school. Despite reading about traveling hobos, I didn’t drink any wine until I was 18. The first wine I had was Beringer White Zinfandel. Nowhere to go but upward from there.
I was working in restaurants. I developed a reputation among my friends as the guy that knew about wine, but I felt I had a significant degree of imposter syndrome, which drove me to reading. I got hooked on the confluence of place and culture and history, and it grew from there.
A lot of reading and working in restaurants, and then I got thrown into the deep end at a pretty serious wine shop in New York. In retail, you get to taste more broadly than you do in most restaurants, because you have to try to be all things to all people.
Albi has a reasonably large wine list at around 300 bottles, but in a retail shop, that would be tiny. There’s a lot of exposure that comes along with that. I worked in wine retail for years. I made the move back to restaurants and started working the floor as a sommelier and pursuing some certifications, because I moved cities and my resume didn’t mean all that much.
Rey Lopez / Smoked & Infused
Could you tell us more about your wine list at Albi?
We have a global wine list that disproportionately favors wines that feature notable textures and acidity, smokiness to complement things off of the hearth.
We certainly list Lebanese, Palestinian, Cypriot, and some Syrian wines. But we don’t focus on those exclusively. We say, what are the flavors that make sense with this cuisine? What are the textures that make sense with this cuisine?
In some ways, we have a lot of liberty. If a person goes to a French or Italian restaurant, they tend to have a solid understanding of what they’re going to drink. Here, people walk through the door without any real preconceived idea of what they should be drinking, because it’s not a cuisine that they’re used to thinking of with wine.
In the Arabic-speaking world, you have a period of roughly 400 years of de facto prohibition under the Ottomans, and winemaking continued as a personal endeavor. People could make wine for their own consumption, but as an industry, it basically ceased to exist.
As the industry returned, it was largely under the tutelage of the French, so the wine culture that evolved was largely geared toward a French palate and arguably not geared toward the cuisine of the region. This is one of the areas where vitis vinifera originated and certainly where it proliferated under the time of the Phoenicians, yet a disproportionate number of wines are French varieties imported in the late 1800s and early 1900s – cabernet sauvignon, merlot, syrah, sauvignon blanc, and chardonnay.
We offer wines from all different producers in Lebanon (where the most are able to be found) of the old guard French varieties and Bordeaux styles, as well as the new guard. [For the new guard], there are winemakers in the region asking, what does an authentic Lebanese wine look like without French influence? Older winemaking techniques like amphora, indigenous varieties.
Rey Lopez / Mersel & Co
Do we see sustainability on your wine menu?
Pretty much exclusively. I shy away from using the word natural for Albi’s wine list in particular, for a lot of reasons.
One is that it just doesn’t mean anything. When the conversation around natural wine got started, the main focus was on the idea that producers cared about the land, that they took a multigenerational view of their obligation to place. They were stewards of the Earth. Certainly, all of the producers that we have on the list at Albi adhere to that idea. They’re mostly family-owned, mostly smaller operations. An overwhelming majority farm organically, whether they’re certified or not.
How has your taste in wine changed over time?
The things that I look for in wine have been largely consistent over time. I favor acidity and freshness and elegance over power.
I had a brief dalliance with big, high-octane wines, just because when I was exposed to them, I had never tasted anything like them before, and so I was fascinated by them. But then, personally, I find them a little bit exhausting. It’s a chore to try and drink a wine that’s fighting you with alcohol and tannin. So, freshness and elegance and a sense of place have always been things that I’ve looked for.
Once I started to get really interested in wine, Burgundy was the first place that really spoke to me. The combination of complexity and simplicity that it has in that it’s “just two grape varieties.” There’s still this incredible variation within it.
Rey Lopez / Philokalia
What’s the biggest misconception about being a sommelier, or wine in general?
People don’t know just how much time you spend in front of an Excel spreadsheet. I love inventory, cataloging, counting bottles, digging into spreadsheets, and organizing things. But at the same time, we do get to taste wine and talk about wine and pursue what we’re passionate about.
The misconception I worry about most is trust. We talk about servers and captains being guest advocates, but there often is a perception that sommeliers are just there to make the sale. Any good sommelier should be interested first and foremost in pairing wine to the guest at the table and developing that trust in that relationship with the guest.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to be in a position like yours?
Take your time. I came into working in wine before the Somm craze and before the documentaries that made the certifications household names.
For me, taking my time was something that was viable because it was the older model of the industry, where it was based a little bit more on the idea of an apprenticeship. In the kitchen you still see it. You don’t take a test that says you’re a sous chef. They have to work their way into the role.
Chart your own path, whatever that is. Find a place that works and make it your own, or don’t. Move around, gain experience, work other places while you’re young and still can. There’s a lot of different avenues to get there.
Hero image: Hawkeye Johnson / William Simons
Alain Ducasse and Daniel Humm chat life, what they think of each other’s cuisine, and the future of fine dining.
Washington, D.C
The director of the Congressional Budget Office—known for its gloomy national debt data—is very optimistic that a crisis will be avoided entirely | Fortune
Dr Phillip Swagel is an optimist, both by nature and when he looks at the U.S. economy.
This fact is perhaps at odds with what one might assume: Swagel is the director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the nonpartisan agency that offers independent budgetary and economic analysis to Congress.
Very often—an inevitable occupational hazard—the subject of national debt and the interest the U.S. Treasury pays to maintain is its central focus. The numbers are eye-watering: Public debt stands at more than $39 trillion. The interest expense on that borrowing now exceeds $1 trillion a year. Indeed, the latest budget update from the CBO highlights that the government—according to preliminary estimates—paid out nearly $530 billion between October 2025, when the fiscal year starts, and March 2026. This equates to more than $88 billion in interest payments a month, or more than $22 billion a week.
The CBO’s figures are routinely cited by policymakers, think tanks, and lobbyists as alarming evidence that the U.S. needs to find a more sustainable fiscal path or risk dire straits.
Swagel doesn’t subscribe to the notion that the U.S. will face a crisis of its own making. His justification is simple: He was at the Treasury during the 2008 financial crisis, and joined the CBO months before the COVID pandemic began. He has watched as the U.S. economy, seemingly against all odds, has clawed its way out of economic crises before.
That’s not to say Swagel isn’t a staunch advocate of setting the U.S. on a more sustainable fiscal path—rather, he trusts the people in power to do so when the time comes.
Why the optimism?
Among those concerned about national debt are notable names: JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, and Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio. Tesla CEO Elon Musk is also worried about federal spending and has endorsed a plan floated by Berkshire Hathaway founder Warren Buffett that would render members of Congress ineligible for reelection if they allow deficits to exceed 3% of GDP.
On the other hand, optimistic economists suggest that, despite the value of the debt, it’s not actually an issue: the bond market is holding steady, indicating a reliable market of buyers. Likewise, the U.S.’s own central bank buys huge swaths of the debt, meaning, in the simplest of layman’s terms, the economy can essentially print its own money. There are holes in this argument, not least the fact that Fed chairman nominee Kevin Warsh has suggested he would like to reduce the Fed’s balance sheet and may therefore be less inclined to finance borrowing.
Swagel’s positive outlook doesn’t rely on the argument that a crisis hasn’t happened yet, so therefore it never will: “[My optimism] is rooted in my experience,” Swagel tells Fortune in an exclusive interview in Washington D.C. “First being at Treasury during the financial crisis and seeing very difficult times and the country coming together with an effective response—not saying it’s perfect, lots of controversy—but it was effective.”
“The second thing is policymakers are smart, they’re thoughtful. Interacting with members of Congress makes me optimistic. I know you read about all the squabbles … I’m completely aware of this, but the policymakers that are thinking about these things are thoughtful and effective. Not necessarily always effective at passing legislation, but that’s part of our political system, it was set up to make it difficult ot pass legislation.”
Decisions on the horizon
Swagel’s optimism that Congress will be pushed into action will be tested sooner rather than later, likely at some point in the next six years, he told Fortune. This is partly due to the fact that, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) both Social Security and Medicare will become insolvent within that time period.
“Making progress to address the fiscal trajectory would be a positive for the U.S. economy,” Swagel said. “Credible steps would lead to lower interest rates that would make the subsequent adjustment easier, there is a reward to virtue. It’s a positive thing, we can’t go on [with] the scolding narrative. My sense is that members of Congress understand the fiscal situation, it’s not that everyone single one has looked at our one-pager of numbers and understands the debt to the third decimal point, but they understand something needs to be done.”
“It doesn’t have to be done immediately, but at some point reasonably soon.”
Swagel is of the opinion that bond investors haven’t increased risk premiums not because they’re not worried about a fiscal crisis, but because they have priced in preventative action from Congress—in his mind “a vote of confidence that my optimism is not misplaced.”
“As a country, we face up to these problems. It’s not happening now, I’m not sure it’s going to happen in the rest of this year or even the next year, or the next two years. But we will face up to it, and the market in some sense expects us to, because otherwise interest rates would be higher,” he explained.
The Cheesecake Factory
The role of the CBO, to some extent, is to provide policymakers with their options if and when they do choose to take action on federal deficits. It’s a menu not unlike the Cheesecake Factory, Swagel says: Large, inclusive of a range of modifications and options, and delivered without judgement.
“Right now it’s maybe a pick three, and you’re looking at a six or seven course menu,” joked Caleb Quakenbush, director of fiscal policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, in an interview with Fortune. “The longer you delay, the more you’re gonna have to add to your tab, and those options become more expensive.”
Indeed, economists and analysts aren’t necessarily worried about the absolute level of government debt, rather the debt-to-GDP ratio. Depending on whom you ask, the debt-to-GDP ratio stands at around 122% of GDP at present. This measure demonstrates an economy’s spending versus its growth, and the risk associated with lending to a nation that isn’t growing fast enough to handle its spending. To rebalance that ratio, an economy could either cut spending or increase growth—the latter being by far the less painful option.
The growth option is becoming less feasible, Michael Peterson, CEO of fiscal think tank the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, told Fortune in an exclusive interview: “I think it requires government action because we’ve waited so long. We’ve added so many trillions, and the current deficit is so big at 6% that the level of growth you would need really exceeds what is feasible.
“Growth needs to be a part of it, but it’s sort of a vicious cycle. The longer we delay, the more debt we have, the slower growth is going to be. The more we get this under control, I think the greater optimism there is, interest rates go down, more growth comes from that. It’s sort of a virtuous or vicious cycle depending on your policy response.”
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) – Seventy-two veterans took a trip Saturday to our nation’s capital to visit memorials honoring their service in the armed forces.
This year marks the 12th trip to Washington, D.C. for Honor Flight Tallahassee.
Early Saturday morning, veterans and their guardians met to take a charter flight up to D.C.
Throughout the day, veterans were taken to the World War II memorial, as well as the Korean and Vietnam War memorials. The veterans also visited Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
More Tallahassee news:
The day ended with a wonderful welcome home celebration.
Our Jacob Murphey, Julia Miller, Taylor Viles, and Grace Temple accompanied the veterans, capturing moments from throughout the day.
The team will have live coverage from Washington, D.C. on Monday to share more from the day’s events.
We will continue to have coverage throughout the month of May, leading up to our Honor Flight special on Memorial Day.
To keep up with the latest news as it develops, follow WCTV on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Nextdoor and X (Twitter).
Have a news tip or see an error? Write to us here. Please include the article’s headline in your message.
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4 things to know about the weather:
- Chances of rain in the morning
- Gusty Sunday
- Chilly Monday
- Temps will rise again through the work week
Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to check the weather radar on the go.
After a nice and warm Saturday, changes arrive for part two of the weekend.
The first half of your Sunday will have a chance for showers. Winds will pick up with our next system and are expected to gust to about 20-30 mph. Cooler air will settle in, and lows Sunday night fall into the 40s.
Highs temps Monday will reach only into the mid to upper 50s.
However, temperatures will rise through the week, so you won’t need your jackets every day.
QuickCast
SUNDAY:
Showers, then partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 30 mph
HIGH: Lower 60s
MONDAY:
Partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 25 mph
HIGH: Upper 50s
Stay with Storm Team4 for the latest forecast. Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to get severe weather alerts on your phone.
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