After seven years of Oakland Yard, I think Daniel and I have met most of the wine drinkers in the neighborhood, and Daniel knows most of your names. And after seven years, we’ve got such a good crew helping to run the shop that we don’t need to work all the time. Thanks, gang! Now that we have lives outside the store, Daniel and I often run into regular customers around town - sometimes even in other cities - prompting a narrowing of the eyes, that slight squint bringing context into focus...“oh hey, it’s the guy from the wine store.” This past week, I encountered familiar faces at the Berkeley farmers’ market, the Piedmont Theater, and Redwood Regional Park, and it felt good to be out among our people, buying vegetables, watching movies, and hiking together.

According to ancient Greeks and modern semioticians, words - and I’d argue, wines and people - have arbitrary names and no intrinsic identities; they are defined and given meaning by their relationships to other words, wines and people. We understand their true natures only by considering them alongside what they are not. I know myself only in the company of others, in the context of our community, and I better understand a wine when I compare it to other wines, like and unlike. In the interest of enlightenment, we often schedule tasting flights featuring a single region or grape variety, to compare our impressions of flavors, textures, and aromas, and to find what makes them unique.

At our tasting bar tonight, we’ll pour reds made from Grenache grown in three different European countries, and whites made from Chenin Blanc from three continents, in an effort to ascertain the nature of these varieties independent from differences in terroir and vinification. Come join us in our search to better understand both these grape varieties, and, in gathering, help to answer the perennial question of what makes you you.

TONIGHT...Thursday Night Flights: GRENACHE and CHENIN BLANC. Taste and compare three wines made from the same grape from three different countries:
2022 Sébastien Brunet Arpent Vouvray - FRANCE
2021 Force Celeste Chenin Blanc - SOUTH AFRICA
2022 Haarmeyer St Rey SRV Chenin Blanc - CALIFORNIA
2021 Bernabeleva Camino de Navaherreros - SPAIN 2021 Piero Mancini Cannonau - SARDINIA
2022 Domaine de Damase Grenache - FRANCE
Flights $15 from 5-9 and wines by the glass until 9pm

SATURDAY 1/20: PIEDMONTESE FLIGHTS
Sample two whites and two reds from the famous wine region of northwest Italy:
2021 La Ghibellina Mainin Gavi di Gavi
2020 Vite Colte Villata Roero Arneis
2021 Oddero Barbera d’Alba Superiore
2021 Luigi Scavino Azelia Langhe Nebbiolo
Flights $18 from 2-6 and wines by the glass until 9pm

See you around,
Max