For many, choosing a wine feels like a bit of a crapshoot. It’s hard to know what’s inside the corked bottle. Will it go with my supper? And will I also enjoy it? European labels tell you where the wine is from, but rarely indicate grape varieties, or methods of production. We learn all we can about the wines we taste from our vendors, importers, distributors, and winemakers, gleaning details of production from online tech-sheets and personal discussion, but these details do not answer the above questions, and so the choice remains inscrutable.

I recently helped my parents clean out their basement, and, among the rusted antique farm tools and half empty paint cans, I found some crusty, forgotten bottles along the bottom rungs of the rack: some ancient Dry Sack Sherry, a magnum of  ’07 Beringer White Zin which had turned brown, and a dusty, squat 750ml of something from Italy that looked like Prosecco, or Spumante, with a crown cap. We put the Sherry in the cooking cabinet, the brown zin down the drain, and the Italian bottle into the fridge for later.  

When my aunt and uncle arrived for supper that night, I popped the mystery bottle and poured myself a splash. Pale yellow and bubbly, but it didn’t smell like much. I took a sip. It was lacking acid and had a nutty flavor, more yeasty than fruity. “I think it’s oxidized,” I said “maybe over the hill.” My uncle asked to try it and declared it drinkable “it’s not bad; tastes a little like beer.” I examined the bottle again, brushing more dust from the back label, finally uncovering the word Birra. Well, that’s just what it was! And we decided it tasted much better, now that we knew it was beer.

Here at Oakland Yard, we have an active tasting bar, where the secrets of the bottles are laid bare. Come on out and ‘try before you buy’ every Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, as we taste through our new arrivals, and this week we’ll stick to wine only.

TONIGHT: Thursday Night Flights! ALL FRENCH REDS or WHITES. $12 tasting flights from 4 to 8pm.

SATURDAY 12/8: ‘ZERO ZERO’ NATURAL WINES – no additions; only grapes - $15 tasting Flights from 2 to 6pm and wines by the glass until 9pm.

SUNDAY 12/9: CALIFORNIA TASTING FLIGHTS $15 tasting, Flights from 2 to 6 and wines by the glass until 8pm.

Cheers,

Max