“Are you tasting enough?” A friend and fellow wine buyer asked me last week.
“No” is always the answer. One cannot taste enough with this job, even in the best of times, and these are hardly those. At the turn of the century, when I started buying wine for a restaurant in Manhattan, I attended my first of countless portfolio tastings, this one for Polaner Imports at the Puck Building on Houston Street. The room was enormous, with floor-to-ceiling red velvet curtains lining the hundred- year-old brick walls. Among the stately white columns, were dozens of tables lined with uncorked bottles, and on the far side of each table was an importer, distributor, or winemaker, there to pour and provide information about the wines. To the side of every table was a bucket. My work was cut out for me.

Since that day, I’ve replayed this scene dozens of times each year, in various venues, and with different actors. There are snooty somms and smarmy salespeople, as well as the familiar faces of fellow buyers, and often, legendary winemakers, some like fishes out of water, far from their vineyards. My role is always the same: the earnest and inquisitive taster, attempting to sample, spit, and humbly assess as much wine as possible without getting too intoxicated. Breakfast helps, as does water, and public transportation is a must. Cities like New York and San Francisco can feature several such tastings in a single day, and I would plan my train route efficiently to maximize attendance.

Twenty years of trade tastings – sampling and asking questions - make up the bulk of my wine education, and I am grateful for these opportunities, but there will never be a time when I have tasted enough. Vintage variation and new producers guarantee a changing market, and the events of the last year have left us winos disconnected from our wares, and from one another. Throughout the last year, we’ve requested sample bottles, received splashes in glasses at the shop door, and tasted from ball jars, sanitized, refilled and labeled by diligent salespeople, but I look forward to the day when again we will congregate, swirling and spitting en masse, immersed in our milieu. ‘Til then we taste apart.

Cheers,
Max

This memory is from Valentine's Day, 2006. Pasadena, CA.

I'm at work, on lunch break, returning from the teacher's lounge with my coffee and heading back to my classroom on the second floor. A forlorn 7th grader sits against the wall a few feet from my door. He's nursing a Yoohoo, his sack lunch and a flat decorative red box from Mrs. Fields lay beside him.

I stop and check in: "You ok, Darius?"
"I asked Lynette to be my girlfriend. She said no. Said she couldn’t be in a serious relationship right now."
He looks out over the playground and lunch tables below.
I gesture toward the Mrs. Fields box. "Was that for her?". He nods.
"Sorry. That sucks". I try to lift the mood: "Well at least you get to eat that big cookie...".
Darius opens the box to reveal its empty contents. "Nah, she took it. It broke in the car anyway. She's eating it with Kayla down there." He points with his chin. I spot them at the table now too.
"Sorry, that really sucks" is all I can think to say.
A peculiar pause follows. Darius tilts his head. "Well, not entirely... ".
A small light, Darius looks up at me, with convincing sincerity: "I kinda have a huge crush on Kayla".

OAKLAND YARD is OPEN TODAY and all weekend for CURBSIDE PICK UP from NOON-7. Wines for your new or lifelong crushes. New arrivals to crush on. To perhaps fall in love with. Treat yourself. Celebrate your resilient heart. 

FLOWER & FORAGE is selling hand tied bouquets (2 color palates) for pick up this weekend! ORDER ONLINE at flowerandforage.com. PICK UP at OAKLAND YARD, Saturday 2/13 and Sunday 2/14 from 12-7pm. These bouquets will be made with local, in season blooms, wrapped and ready for you to put in your favorite vase at home (support small business!). And we've got Dandelion chocolates and other treats. Bubbles and bouquets. Bottles to bring you warmth and wonder. Our ONLINE SHOP is up and offers free curation service - and our Online Bottle Shop (with pictures) is up as well. 


Keep spreading the love,

Daniel

My wife, Julia, and I moved from New York to California seven years ago this weekend, and the first days of February always remind us of this migration. We’d shipped our belongings and slept at a friend’s, and the cobblestones of Van Brunt Street were thick with ice when we awoke and jumped in a taxi to the airport with tears streaming down our cheeks. That winter we fled was brutal, and since then we’ve decidedly grown soft. A mild frost, or a morning in the forties, feels now frigid, and the idea of single digit temperatures is appalling, but at times like this, we do get some snow envy.

Seeing photos of my snowbound homeland brings many feelings: the frozen web of nose hairs with every inhalation, the snowball that hits the neck or cheek just right and slides under the scarf to melt, and numb toes thawing at the fireside. But these and other memories cannot capture the magical, transporting effect of a heavy snowfall, which erases objects, replacing them with curves and brightness, and muffles sound to a near-silent softness, with flakes that meander to the ground, suspended and swirling in the breeze like a sleepy school of fish, creating a sense of slow and sweeping motion within the stillness.

In our adopted land, we have ocean vistas and clear night skies to remind us of the boundlessness of nature, and of our connection to this greatness, beyond all capability of calculation, measurement, or imitation. These sights are similarly nourishing, but there’s nothing quite like lying on one’s back, cradled by the snow, in stillness and silence, regarding an endless field of slowly falling flakes.

For the moment, we’ll happily take the rain, the frost, and the forties of February, and they’ll feel now nearly as cold as that icy morning in Brooklyn seven years ago. Here in Oakland, we see rainbows in winter, we take sunset hikes in the hills, and lately, I’ve been getting a glimpse of the sublime in a simple glass of red Bordeaux, which I raise to my shivering peeps back east.

Cheers,
Max

Slow moving today. It's hard to get going with so much gray. I tried to sneak in a few lines to you while my three year old eats her breakfast, but she'll never sit still. Breakfast is a five act interpretive dance with that one. Act 2 (and 4) this morning required her dumping out all the clean laundry between sips of milk and hiding in the hamper. Her baby sister, Simone, senses my frustration. "Argh... WHY must you keep going in the basket, Ellery?" I ask. "Because I fit", she says.

She's has her Stegosaurus rain jacket on now and is out the door. Another wet one out there today. This weather is predictably wretched for retail, but the rain is most welcome. The pandemic has really interrupted our sense of time, and how we mark and measure moments. So with holidays and other milestones passing with little pomp, these longer storm stretches validate this all perhaps feeling like a proper season. We need these trail markers. And, with the reality of an unwelcome annual fire season here now, I have a deeper appreciation for these wet winter months - even with all the emotional weight and wash dumping down on us. An introspection reluctant to leave. A revisited page from some autumn afternoon not so long ago.

If I'm lucky, I can hear Max in his residence above the shop - playing cello in the late morning solitude, a Bach suite undulating over the ceiling beams. The store will have a warm glow by midday. Staff arriving to liven things up. Masked, muffled laughter. Phones ringing and funny messages mixed in with online email requests. Lots of jazz today. Cannonball Adderley. Mingus. Gilberto for certain. Nothing better than Bossa Nova and the rain.

Let's keep tapping. Let's keep moving. Swinging and swaying, cool and gentle. And if it gets really wild out there, know that we've got an ark of wine here to keep you warm.

Cheers,

Daniel

Gene Ammons to start it off:  PLAY
Somethin’ Else: PLAY

Catharsis is a Greek word defined as a cleansing or purging, and it was first used metaphorically by Aristotle, in Poetics, to explain the impact of tragedy on an audience. He believed that this ‘catharsis’ should be the main goal of a tragic artistic work, to elicit an emotional release that frees the viewer from pity and fear. Our most recent national tragedy, which began four years ago as an unscripted and unscrupulous reality show, appears now to be culminating in a final act carefully crafted to achieve this effect.

The formerly quaint and pompous pageantry of our presidential inaugurations – the anthems, prayers, poetry, and reverence for democracy – felt weighty and important this time around, and, while we can all agree there is much work to be done, by ourselves and our new leaders, yesterday’s swearing-in brought an undeniable measure of relief to much of the populous. How refreshing to hear politicians speak of love and justice, in full, grammatically correct sentences, and with genuine smiles! It is time to move on, to stop watching in fear, but to keep listening with hope, and acting with the generosity borne of love and the wisdom of history.

We’ve already been busy this year at Oakland Yard, finding new and delicious reds to keep you cozy during this welcome rainy season. Recent arrivals include the fresh and funky Les Enfants Sauvages Côtes Catalanes Rouge, two new, well-priced, spicy Côtes-du-Rhones from Clos Bellane and La Cabotte, the super-light and dangerously drinkable FUSO21 CALX Primitivo, the earthy, satisfying Demoiselles de Falfas Bordeaux Rouge, as well as an elegant and affordable Alto Adige Pinot Noir from Wilhelm Walch, and a new vintage of Emilio Moro’s rich and powerful Ribera del Duero.

We’ve picked up quite a few new ‘orange’ wines this year as well, which you may find quite suitable for winter drinking, including Frenchman Louis-Antoine Luyt’s Chilean Portezuelo Blanco Pipeno, and a dry but fruity skin-macerated Scheurebe from Brook Bannister in Sonoma, as well as a pink-hued Purity Pinot Gris by Noel Diaz, the talented Marc Isart’s Spanish Maldicion made from Malvar, Scarbolo’s Friulian Il Ramato, and the much anticipated return of the inimitable Elizabetta Foradori’s Tuscan Ampeleia Bianco.

Until next time, stay masked, disinfected, and hopeful. There will be hugs at the end of this tunnel.

Cheers,

Max

An Instagram story popped up on my feed late last night: a young woman I know from the shop, commiserating on the indelicate filth and absurd joy that young children bring. In her brief video clip she relates the nearly real-time experience of giving her 1 year old daughter a bath - and of the sudden disturbing appearance of a most unwelcome turd. The baby reacts to the tiny alien submarine with bewilderment and limited language: "That? Thaaat?", which could mean What the hell is this? or (and) That is yours to deal with.

My wife, in bed, heard me laugh out loud in the front room. And this morning, before work: You're going to tell the poop story aren't you? Yes, apparently.

Max, with a gift for words and yet ever so succinct, began his letter to you last week simply with "Wow.". It's been that kind of week, that kind of month and year. 2021 yielded but a few days of respite and now here we are. This morning I'm thinking about this new year and (as is customary every January, I suppose) reflecting on self, on relationships, on this country. Thinking about new resolutions, new possibilities. Of all the changes I wish to see, to enact. But I'm reminded to take some time to acknowledge those elements of self and surrounding that deserve to remain. Things worthy of our pride and our heart. Reminding myself that there are indeed good things. Great things, even. Yes, in 2020. And in 2021. Things worthy of celebration. Things worthy of permanence. While we look to make positive changes, the old saying "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" comes to mind. Though to be clear, like many in the House advocated yesterday: Definitely, definitely toss out the shit.

So clean, scrub, toss, purge. Do what you must. But hold onto the good things. Cling to the little joys. And then let's face this new day together. Refreshed.

Cheers,

Daniel

Wow. Where to begin? Just when you think things are getting back to the new normal, the national rollercoaster ride starts up again. So joyous it was to awake yesterday to the news from Georgia, and how shameful and frightening to see our public servants left to defend themselves and their right to govern. I resented having to pay attention but felt an obligation to watch the absurd occupation unfold. How is it that I can’t even walk on an airplane with a wine opener, and these dimwitted terrorists were invited into our halls of legislature with pipe bombs?

At the shop yesterday, I was sad and angry, and wanted to better understand what was going on. My colleague, Monique, helped name the feeling: “I have so many questions,” she said. Am I surprised? Not really. Disappointed? Yes. Was that shirtless guy with the furry horned hat the front man for GWAR? No. Do I believe in a special ring of Hell designed specifically for men like Hawley, Cruz and Gaetz? Yes, I do. Or at least it helps to imagine one. It also helps to talk to people about what’s going on, and I feel particularly bereft of the ability to gather together at times like this. I want to be at our local watering hole, processing and ridiculing with friends and strangers, or at a café, sitting with people I love, or behind our own tasting bar, welcoming customers in to sigh, rail, moan, laugh, or just quietly weep, together.

It is hard to be apart right now, relegated to our lonely little circles, but it is helpful to me to continue to acknowledge the direction we are most certainly headed. There will be an extremely smart and compassionate woman of color casting the deciding vote on many of our most important decisions moving forward as a country, and we may be rid of our most hateful and despicable president even sooner than we expected. Until then, turn off the news, pour a glass of wine, and listen to the blessed rain.

Cheers,
Max

Reflecting this morning on years turning, two incongruous memories come to mind. The first is the time I took my friend out for a birthday dinner on the last night of his twenties, a diversion, while guests assembled for a party at his house (I'd call it an early night, drive him back home... lights on: "SURPRISE!"). But my friend insisted we 'walk off our dinner' and get one more drink at a bar a half hour away, unaware that guests had been waiting over an hour for our arrival. I was stumped and went along with the request, in my head the whole walk to the bar (how the hell will this end?). At some point, mid drink, mid story, I excused myself to the bathroom to call his girlfriend (again) to waive the white flag - when something else happened. A more decisive and imaginative friend intervened while I was whispering in bathroom stalls. Unbeknownst to me, his crew of buddies stormed into the bar (in skeleton masks!) and staged an abduction, literally dragging the birthday boy from the bar, throwing him into a van and peeling off. I emerged from the restroom to a collection of confused and terrified faces. They took your friend!, one hollered. I was as confounded and alarmed as they were, until one of the skeletons returned for me. "It's me, Brendan", the skeleton said, smiling.

The other memory happened nearly 20 years ago. The last night of the century, the turn of the millennium with all the Y2K insanity of the time. For reasons I can't explain beyond trying to please people, I agreed to accompany my girlfriend's family and her cousins visiting from Colombia - to Las Vegas. The trip was a series of expected fiascos and miscommunications. The main event involved us joining half a million strangers out on 'The Strip' for a midnight celebration that was never promoted nor promised. While individual casinos had their own small fireworks and some razzledazzle inside and on courtyards here and there - their was no coordinated effort for the throngs along the thoroughfare - nothing remotely resembling a big ball drop. After the initial exclamations and kisses, things fell apart quickly. A man fell from a light post above. Fights broke out. A report of a knife. Crowds ran and darted in every direction. We had no plan. I grabbed my girlfriend's little sister and put her on my shoulders. I remember the sea and the panic. I ran too, following the only silhouette I could recognize - her cousin, Fabian (aka Gordo), and his big head they all incessantly teased him about. By some mystical magnetism I still can't comprehend, we all reconnected outside a CVS, two blocks away.

Like most people, I have no big plans tonight, just waiting here, for one year to become another. But I'll be missing you all and raising a glass. To health and life. And I'll be thinking of old friends, and of family. Of high jinks and happenstance. Of Fabian's big head. Of the feeling of great relief when things fall into place. Of how warm and wonderful it will be when we all can reconnect and be together again. Of the promise and potential of a new year. Until then, let's keep our heads up and our eyes open. Hold loved ones close. Follow something or someone good. Never let them out of sight.

Happy New Year, friends.

Cheers,
Daniel

OAKLAND YARD is OPEN TODAY for CURBSIDE PICK UP from NOON-7.

As we stare down the final weeks of 2020, I feel both sadness and a sense of accomplishment. It is impossible, and surely unwise, to ignore the suffering and destruction that has made this a year to remember, but when it is done, I will also recall how we’ve endured, adapted, and sometimes thrived. We’ve changed our minds, practicing new thought patterns to engage with the world differently, testing the limits of our generosity, our patience, and our independence. The best among us showed their generosity and patience to be boundless, but our beloved American self-sufficiency had its limits; we needed each other more than ever.

There is a traditional Jewish story I’ve used to cheer myself up now and then, and it’s been in my mind quite a bit this year. It is the tale of a person of little means, with a small, one-room house and a large family. Without the space to live comfortably, their spouse and many children are bumping into each other, snoring, disturbing one another, and generally at each other’s throats. Things could not be worse, they think, and so they go to their Rabbi for advice on how to help the family situation. The Rabbi asks if they have any animals. “Yes,” they reply, “We have a cow, a goat and three chickens.” The Rabbi continues, “Then invite them into your house to live with you all.” Maybe you can see where this is going. The poor person brings the animals into the house and they make it more crowded and noisy, and foul- smelling to boot. They return complaining, and the Rabbi instructs them to first remove the chickens, then the goat, and finally the cow, and voila! Suddenly the house seems large, its inhabitants amiable, and life is again manageable and joyful for the family. 2020 has been our barnyard in the house, and I think we’re all looking forward to an ever so slightly less complicated year ahead.

Oakland Yard will be open today for curbside pick-up from 11am until 6pm, and Monique, Crystal, Daniel and I are looking forward to helping you find that special bottle, delectable vittle, or last minute gifts. We’ve even got a handful of spectacular bouquets from Flower & Forage for the early birds. Thank you all for helping to make this holiday season a successful one for Oakland Yard. We hope we never have to do it this way again. We like having you in the shop and look forward to a December when we can embrace one another and stand beside each other, unmasked and smiling. Until then, we are grateful for your support and truly hope that our additions to your holiday table, and the bottles at the foot of your tree, help make it a joyful holiday season for your family as well.

Cheers,
Max

My older daughter celebrated her birthday last week. I can go on about how she has enriched my life and all that has given me since her arrival (in this giving season) three years ago, but my favorite gifts from her are new words. Her words. I'm not talking about her learning our language, but more so the creation and sharing of her own unique vocabulary.

Much of this was just silly baby babble through the years that my wife and I have kept alive. Our daughter calling blueberries booboos, etc . At three, she can now say oatmeal quite clearly, but we'll all still frequently call it oompalah, as was her habit - and though I believe she knows the word toothpaste, she'll still ask where the mintyminty is. My favorite of all: she calls bare or shoeless feet beadie feeties. I really don't know how to spell most of these.

But the one the house has adopted, the most used word of all, is perhaps the most ordinary. Stuffers. While seemingly just a superfluous extension of stuff, I soon embraced her particular nomenclature. You see, stuffers is not the same as stuff. While stuff accumulates, those things (what we adults might call crap) are category C, not even on her radar. Stuffers is category B. In her mind's landscape but occupying no part of her heart. It’s things in her life that have collected but they have no word, no assigned name, no assigned value, no true purpose. Stuffers occupy space, but do not spark joy.


I know it may sound hokey as hell, but somehow this year it really hit me. The gift of words. The joy, the power. The pandemic has limited us so much. Now every phone call, every note, every text means that much more. And I think of the words we share each week with you. And I'm thinking this morning of all of your words that you've shared with us these past months, words of concern and support at our door, messages of gratitude and encouragement on the phone, a warm addendum accompanying online request orders...

Beyond your words, this holiday season we couldn’t ask for anything more than what you all have given us. Another birthday. Our lights are on and there's a roof over head and our doors are open. You are a part of our heart. We're here for you and because of you, open today and everyday until Christmas day, happily writing and relaying your kinds words onto holiday cards and special bottles - or spoken to the surprised and delighted faces who receive them.

Keep spreading the joy. Keep sharing light. Keep the good words alive.

Everything else is just stuffers.


Happy Holidays,

Daniel


HOLIDAY HOURS
OPEN ALL WEEK (THROUGH SUNDAY) REGULAR HOURS 11-7
*OPEN MONDAY 12/21 12-6PM*
OPEN TUESDAY 12/22 & WEDNESDAY 12/23 11-7PM
*OPEN CHRISTMAS EVE 11-6*

I like to think I have a few attributes that make me a decent friend, but staying in touch is not one of them. I’m a terrible correspondent. I may love you dearly, but if you move away, or I from you, then you will not hear much from me. It’s not that I’m too busy, although owning a shop can make one feel that way. Nor have I forgotten you. You inhabit my mind with past words, gestures, and laughter, echoes and images that keep you here with me, but I am not inclined to reach out with news.

I saw a phone booth the other day and thought ‘How quickly life changes!’ One always kept a dime, and then a quarter, to make a call. That quarter was important, and could be your only path to safety should something unexpected befall you. In my college dormitory, there was a row of three wooden booths beside the cigarette vending machine, and just about every Sunday, for the four years when the eighties met the nineties, I’d spend an hour in a booth on a collect call with my parents.

Not long ago, in the grand scheme, it was smoke signals and drumbeats, but by my grandparents’ time, letter writing was a thing. Everyone wrote letters. My grandfather would often include illustrations in his letters, and I still have a note in which he describes picking beach plums with his friend, Mel, at the Sunken Forest on Fire Island. “Grandma made the best jelly out of them. Only about 4 jars came out of all those plums. I think if you write to Grandma and ask her for a jar she might spare one.” The image, drawn with colored pencils, shows two men and a tree, and my grandfather writes: “I am the good looking one in the picture.”

Some folks write an annual form letter at the close of the year, reviewing the family exploits, their accomplishments and setbacks. One could imagine what the American people would write this year, if we were all one family addressing the other nation families of the world. “It was a big year for the United States. Many of us fell sick and died, and many others began to acknowledge our systemic racism, and throughout, we were not particularly united. Fire laid waste to homes and forests, and our jobs have changed, or disappeared entirely. We grew our hair long and mostly kept to ourselves. We will learn lessons of immeasurable importance from the unexpected events of this year, but it will take time for us to know them, and we are very much looking forward to next year. With love, America.”

We at Oakland Yard are eternally thankful for your continuing support, and with a store chock full of exciting wines, new beers and truly delectable snacks, we are dedicated to helping you make these last three weeks of 2020 not just manageable, but cozy, fun, relaxed, and maybe the best three weeks of the whole damn year!

Cheers,
Max

I'm often confounded by the simplest things. Rattled by obvious truths. I didn't discover that reindeer were actually real animals until I was in high school. In 6th grade my brother told me you could fold a paper 42 times and it would reach the moon. When I confirmed this with my teacher I was literally dizzy with something closer to fright than awe. A winemaker I assisted just a few years ago discussed the limits of his vocation. "If I'm lucky", he remarked, "maybe I get to do 20 more harvests?". An acquaintance last week expressed sadness that her annual family gathering was not happening this year. Again, it was the simple math that crushed me: "...I mean, best case scenario, I think we'll only all get together 10, maybe 15, more times", she lamented.

I got to counting that day. And though I can't control the cruel math, I know I can give it meaning. Of all the struggles and strains that 2020 has presented, I am grateful for the renewed appreciation of time. Of counting and recounting blessings and days and years with an awareness and respect for finite numbers.

Here's another one: 17 days.

Jessie Olsen joined OAKLAND YARD just before the holidays in 2017. She was our first hire. She arrived with a can-do-anything attitude, a New York heart, a down to earth disposition, a wealth of knowledge about Italian wine, and her tiny Chihuahua-fox... a magical creature casanova who would become our greeter and shop dog, Turtle.

Jessie takes pride in her work. She cares. She gets her hands dirty. Jessie helped build this ship and has been at the helm for the past three years, serving and stocking and selecting thousands of wines for dinner tables and countless celebrations across this town. And even as we've sailed into unchartered waters these past few months, we've been able to stay the course with our seasoned captain. In 17 days, Jessie's sails off to a new adventure, to start her own business. We have been so lucky to work with Jessie for so long and will miss her dearly. And while we know she'll drop in on occasion with Turtle (she's convinced him he's the mayor of Temescal and will require future 'face time' for re-election), December 20th will be her official last day here at the shop. Mark you calendars with broken hearts. Ring the bells that can still ring. Get to counting. Stop by while you can and say hello and farewell. Show and share some love.


Daniel

My parents’ centuries-old yellow farmhouse is the coziest place I know, which is a very good thing, because it’s often bitterly cold in western New York by the end of November. The house has seen nearly fifty Thanksgiving celebrations with the Davis family, and doubtless many more with the Hathaways, Peglows, and Poppenhusens preceding us. I haven’t always made it home for Thanksgiving, but on this day, it is always where I’d rather be, and I can still easily conjure in my mind the soft, orange light light in the living room window one sees from the end of the long, snowy driveway.

Like so many of us, I will not be traveling to be with my family today, but they will be in my thoughts, and many of them will also be on my computer screen shortly. I wonder if Zoom can handle the day’s traffic, with everyone’s aunts and uncles and cousins gathered in space, laid out like the Brady Bunch, or the Hollywood Squares. I look forward to seeing them, my people, though it won’t be the same as overeating together, with no tickling or poking each other, and no one seated on the floor playing ‘spoons,’ the family blood sport. Maybe next year we’ll be able to get back to these dear and familiar activities.

Daniel, Monique and I will be in the shop today from 10am to 2pm to help with last minute holiday supplies. We’ve still got loads of great wines, beer, cheese and charcuterie to keep your festivities rolling, and I look forward to seeing the smiling eyes above your masks, in lieu of the warm light of that cozy, snow-covered home.

Thank you, and a happy Thanksgiving to you all,

Max

 

OPEN THANKSGIVING DAY 10AM-2PM

I had a friend named Phillip in grade school who thought it would be funny to remove the head of his sister's doll and put it in the oven when no one was watching. The gag was simple, someone would open the door to slide in a casserole or a massive turkey... and there would be (gasp!) a head in the oven! It was the kind of joke kids play in 4th grade, the busy kitchen and particularly large Thanksgiving crowd would mean more laughs. Problem was, 4th graders are easily distracted and quickly move on to other merriment - and 4th graders do not consider that ovens are often preheated. I wasn't there, so I cant tell you who smelled the melting plastic or the singed hairs first, or if anyone screamed seeing the grotesque melted face, but Phillip told me on Monday he "got grounded from Thanksgiving forever".

Thanksgiving is going to be different this year for most of us, with many of us feeling grounded, perhaps in two ways. Sitting down to write you I find myself thinking back on past holiday feasts and Thanksgiving memories I've shared over the years. And while this year will likely see less pomp and preparation, I hope that the potential intimacy of smaller gatherings is something special that we can all embrace, and truly celebrate in its own right.

We'll surely miss the warm, lively crowds in the shop, curating and collecting bottles for their feasts and festivities in the weeks ahead, but we are eternally grateful for those who remain connected to this shop and who keep this space, this joy alive. With businesses closing all around the city, the profound gratitude we have this particular year is immeasurable. We are thankful simply to be. Thankful to keep our doors open and to still have a place in this amazing community. We are here for you and because of you. We remain honored and delighted to be your shop - and a part of your celebrations, whatever size or shape this year.

With all our thanks and deepest appreciation,

Daniel and the OAKLAND YARD family


HOLIDAY HOURS
OPEN TODAY - SUNDAY REGULAR HOURS 11-6PM
*OPEN MONDAY 11/23 12-6PM*
OPEN TUESDAY 11/24 & WEDNESDAY 11/25 *11-7PM*
OPEN THANKSGIVING DAY 10AM-2PM

Ten years ago, Daniel Schmidt walked into Smith & Vine wine shop, in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, for a second interview. He’d already impressed the general manager, and he was passed on to me and Michele, one of the shop owners, to see if he’d meet our approval. I don’t remember anything was said, but I remember that Daniel seemed nervous - a little shaky, talking quickly, eager to say the right thing - but he also came across as genuine and kind, and he was knowledgeable and passionate about wine. As soon as Daniel left the room, Michele smiled and made a gesture I’d never seen before: she drew a heart with two fingers in the air.

It was a big day for Daniel. Needless to say, he got the job, but he also gained, in me, a business partner and lifelong friend, and more importantly, he then got the girl, for when Glenny was hired shortly thereafter, he was smitten, she fell for him, and they began their life together. Smith & Vine was staffed exclusively by restaurant escapees, former waiters and cooks who loved food and wine, but had been jilted, or just plain worn down, by the industry. They were done with uniforms and late nights, tired of listening to the Buena Vista Social Club and Gypsy Kings, the anodyne soundtrack of nineties dining. They wore ripped jeans and played hip-hop loudly, and they knew their grapes. My first day at Smith & Vine, I wore a button down shirt and nice shoes, and they told me I was overdressed.

It felt liberating to act naturally at work, to really be ourselves, and still be appreciated for excellent service. The connections we made with our odd bunch of regular customers felt nurturing and supportive. We served Olympians and court clerks, writers and bike mechanics, actors and teachers, chefs and musicians, and their daily visits enriched our lives. Just thinking of them makes me smile. Our experience together at Smith & Vine made us want to create something like this for ourselves, and for Oakland, a friendly wine store without pretense or attitude, a place to get to know our neighbors.

Daniel, Glenny, Julia, and I opened Oakland Yard four years ago next week, and I like to think we’ve accomplished much of what we set out to do. In March of this year, we were awarded Oakland Magazine’s People’s Choice Best Wine Shop and Best Wine Bar in the east bay. The novel virus has limited our closeness, but this too shall pass. Our online store looks great, thanks to Daniel, and it’ll keep us afloat, but it’s no substitute for the community we’ve built and will enjoy again in its fullness some day. Thank you for an excellent first four! Despite divisive politics, drought and wildfires, pestilence, and the usual greed and hatred, together, we’ve created a little bubble of wine and love - to sustain and support us in our journeys - and it all began on one day, ten years ago, three thousand miles away.

Here’s to the next four years,

Max

I've had a hard time starting this one. With the angst and uncertainty of the election I found myself needing to prepare two very different letters for you today, depending on the outcome. And while today brings more hope than anyone may have been feeling on Tuesday, I'm not pushing bubbles quite yet.

Something about my participation in this unknown outcome reminds me of a series of books I was wild about in my youth. The Choose Your Own Adventure books left an indelible mark, as fantastical, absurd and arbitrary as they were. The obvious and persistent themes of mortality. The simple notion of having a choice in my narrative arc, in my own (final) outcome. Perhaps intrigued by failure, these books gripped and rattled me. I can still recall one particular ending, like a terrible dream, some 30 plus years later. A miscalculation, a regrettable decision. There is a loud noise or a sudden flash of light, when I needed to go unnoticed. I am suddenly surrounded by the wolves. The simple and hopeless final line haunted me for years: They begin to close in. The rest of that page is startling bare. It is the END. My end.

As I read more adventures during those years, the failures were less shocking, but more internalized. A disappointment in my decisions, in myself. A naiveté of my autonomy. If only I chose this or that, perhaps things would have turned out better. I'll confess to you that I'd often cheat, keeping several twisted little fingers tucked in to various pages - an invisible thread to find my way back from ultimate doom - with one foot and my still beating heart tethered to trail markers and past potential at each forked path.

As an adult, I know that narratives are not singular. And perhaps that is something positive I took from those books, ultimately. The other threads and endings are not alternate, but simultaneous - a better outcome is there, sometimes playing out unnoticed or simply waiting to be discovered. Sometimes just on the other side of the current page. Let's breathe deeply and hold some hope in our hearts this morning. Let's hope for the best. But whatever happens with the election, this adventure does not end today… nor in the coming weeks. We still have much work to do. We still have decisions to make, wolves to fight off. We will keep fighting. And most importantly, let us keep fighting for those who have little choice in their outcomes. Forget the ending, let’s focus on how we can begin. Let’s change the narrative. Let us write a new page, together.

In solidarity,

Daniel


P.S.
OAKLAND YARD turns 4 next week... we'll be sending out news in the next few days about an outdoor socially distant celebration on the afternoon of Sunday, November 14th. Stay tuned!

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live,’ writes Joan Didion, in The White Album. ‘We live...by the ‘ideas’ with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.” Every other Thursday morning, for the past four years, my friend and business partner, Daniel, and I – both stubborn procrastinators - have woken up early to write. We write to share the stories that bring meaning to our lives, stories that help us understand our place in the world, that make us laugh, or change our minds.

When we opened Oakland Yard in November of 2016, Daniel suggested we share the task of writing of a weekly ‘newsletter’ featuring amusing stories, new products, events, and promotions. I’d say I have a great appreciation for wine, but I don’t know anyone who wants to read a weekly essay about the stuff. My delight in wine comes from the unmediated experience, a smelling and touching and tasting that has nothing to do with words. Wine, like music, does not fit into words, or rather words are unfit to describe them, and much of the value of wine - and all food and art – for me, is that it sends me places words cannot go. We still write about the store, or about wine, occasionally, but these days, with no events on the horizon and fewer actors onsite, more often than not, we just tell stories. I suppose we do it to try to make sense of our lives, to freeze the phantasmagoria.

So we try to let our wines speak for themselves – they may whisper, groan, roar or sigh; far be it from us to tell you what they’re saying – and instead we put words to our hopes and fears, to the funny thing that happened last week, to a persistent childhood memory, or any of the unlikely events that make up a half century of life on this planet. When I was young and learning to write, I felt I had not lived enough, not seen enough, to have anything interesting to say. I used to joke that I was busy gathering information, storing data, and that one day I would release my findings. Maybe it wasn’t a joke after all. Daniel and I have each written over a hundred of these missives, all archived on our website for binge-reading or general reference. Some mornings we’re sharper than others, but it always comes from the heart.

Thank you for reading,

Max

I wrote a couple weeks ago about my daughter's peculiar affinity for acorns - and mostly about her doing the ridiculous things kids do that elicit head-shaking grins. One thing no one told me is that while toddlers are often silly and spastic, they can also be downright frightening. I don't mean that in a "eeek..she's so high up that ladder!" kind of way, I mean she can actually creep me out. My fears of the dark return to me. She'll wake me up in the night with her cries, and I'll hold a palpable terror in my arms. She'll tell me about spiders on the ceiling or of a wolf chasing her, and I'll console her as best I can. But some nights she'll really spook me - like last week when I entered her room around 6:30 to start the day. She was just standing there in the dark, silent with her back to me, facing the wall. Everything OK? I asked. A slow glance over her shoulder, then pointing at the wall and a whisper delivered with chilling clarity and calm: "I can still see the monster's shadow...". That afternoon I looked online for a night light, not for her but for me.

Halloween is a week or so away, though I doubt we'll see many trick-or-treaters out and about this year. While I've never been really into it, having a little one brings new interest in holidays. Ellery is now aware of this dress up day and has told me that she wants to be an astronaut, so planning is underway. My folks had their hands full creating costumes for all of us kids - painting little faces into werewolves and pirates and wrapping miniature mummies in Ace bandages. I more often played characters than dress-up. Eddie Munster one year. Thriller-era Michael Jackson another. Fonzie from Happy Days. One year I gave in and let some of the older siblings talk me into a costume called the Shaggy Dog. It was made entirely of newspaper, cut into strips like grass skirts and affixed with an absurd amount of scotch tape. It was a strange spectacle. A shiny brown nose and a concerted canine enthusiasm brought it all together. But that evening a certain shyness stopped me from selling it. We went out into the neighborhood for candy and the first door opened. Ooohh, a pirate! Oooh, a ghost! I stood there lackadaisically. An uncomfortable pause, a muffled discussion with another adult in the doorway, and then: "Well, look at you! ... Are you trash?"


Whatever next week, next month, or next year looks like, have no fear.. we are here for you. Whether your days are triumphant or trash, sunshine or shadows, we're here to hold you. No tricks, only treats. OAKLAND YARD is OPEN and for CURBSIDE PICK UP Tuesday through Sunday 12-6. Our ONLINE SHOP is up and offers free curation service as well as a new online bottle shop (with pictures!). Our phone lines are open as well - and though there may be a short wait, feel free to walk up to our door as well. Little shaggy (and not so shaggy) dogs are most welcome, always:)

Sunlight takes about eight minutes and twenty seconds to reach the earth, and, like the paradoxical ancient Greek word pharmakon, meaning both remedy and poison, the light of the sun is a necessity of life, and also a lethal danger. Sunlight is scattered and filtered by our atmosphere, and it appears to us with differing qualities, depending on the season, or time of day. Morning and evening light travel a long passage through our gaseous ring to bring us golden hues and lengthened shadows, while the penetrating midday light encounters less dust and fewer molecules, giving sharp, short shadows, and bright blue skies. The fall season brings cooler weather, not because the sun is farther from us, but because of the angle of its rays, a result of our signature twenty-four degree tilt. Like that of morning and evening, autumn light is less direct, more diffuse, yellower, and softer.

Fall seems to have a natural poignancy, an emotional power that many of us respond to with introspection, thoughts of our larger voyage, a new perspective on our past, present, and future. This change in light is one of many signals on our perennial path to winter, perhaps the most obvious sign of seasonal change in these parts, where a day in late October can warm to the high nineties, but the leaves continue to fall, and the geese still pass with a honk. The cosmos are moving at the same speed as in summer, but the effects of this motion, and our response to it, form a watershed of evaluation, a time to acknowledge and effect change.

I received my election ballot in the mail this week, and I intend to fill it out this weekend, and if you too have received this powerful and long awaited packet of paper, I encourage you to do the same. For me, this act of inking will be a moment of personal victory, regardless of the ultimate outcome. Next month will be Oakland Yard’s fourth anniversary, and the fourth anniversary of an election that so changed and divided our country that we no longer recognize it. Four years ago, it felt like we needed to hang on tight, because the ride was about to get a lot wilder. Well, we were right - it got wild, and we’re still white-knuckling it – but we’re still here, and you’re still there, and despite that dark, orange day we lived through last month, and these dark four years we’ve endured in America, here comes the sun, little darling. Here comes the sun, and I say, it’s all right. It’s all right.

Cheers,

Max

You need any acorns? I've got some. Loads of them. My two year old daughter (three in December!) has amassed an extraordinary collection. There are massive oaks that frame a cul-de-sac nearby and each evening when I get home from work, she begs me to let her wander and gather them up. She is a motivated squirrel - hoarding, storing, scattering, occasionally trying to eat them. It seemed harmless enough at first, and, in truth, was delighted to support her interest in these free toys. But now it's gotten out of hand. Mounds and piles in every room. Miniature land mines beneath early morning bare feet. Seven in a bowl here, sixteen in mom's wool sock... What's that smell in the oven? You guessed it. They are everywhere. She even picks unique favorites each night to take to bed (a tiny whisper in the dark: "Don't move, let me tuck you in, little fella..")
 
I inquire about her general plan, her endgame. "To pick them ALL!" she squeals and scurries off. I ask Ellery what she will do when she has them ALL.  "Give them to EVERYONE!" she hollers, triumphantly. And so the great socialist acorn revolution continues, as I write you this morning, picking one out of my slipper and sipping my coffee.

Watching my little one grow, the acorn metaphor is plain. Simple, and rather hokey, perhaps - that something singular and so small can grow to something so grand. But this morning I reflect not on the acorn, but the squirrel. The acorn falls from the tree with such promise, but will not grow in the tree's massive shade. It's the little critters, the simple characters that collect, store and scatter these tiny seeds and allow them potential new life in other corners and cul-de-sacs of the world.

We miss you here at the shop, and all the little joys and gentle gestures you brought into this space. Your seeds, your stories and anecdotes, the collection of curiosities and your kind contributions that made this space grand. We miss growing with you. Until this all passes, we hope you find some some delight and comfort in the collection of treasures we have amassed here at OAKLAND YARD. We hope these bottles will find their way to you - and to your friends and fellow critters, scattered across the city. Into your hands and into your homes, bringing you warmth and joy. A joy that grows. A towering joy. 

With love,

Daniel