Originally from upstate New York, Jonathan "Max" Davis graduated from Vassar College and moved to the East Bay. Max worked for several years front of house at Chez Panisse in Berkeley and eventually took his passion for wine back to the East Coast as the wine director at Five Points Restaurant, NYC. He feels his most rewarding tenure was managing Smith & Vine, a respected and beloved neighborhood retail store in Brooklyn. As wine buyer and manager, Max curated a Eurocentric wine program focusing on traditional, smaller and natural producers. Max returned to the East Bay, and worked as the Assistant Wine Director at Chez Panisse and assisted with wine tastings and sales for Bi-Rite Markets in SF before opening OAKLAND YARD in 2016.
Daniel Schmidt was a public school educator for a decade after college. He moved from teaching to be a student of wine, taking a position as a harvest intern in western Sonoma. When his sales experience brought him to New York, he found himself fortunate to join Davis at Smith & Vine in Brooklyn. Daniel returned to the Bay Area and spent several years in various roles in wine production, notably as Vineyard Manager and Production Assistant at Copain Winery and as an Assistant Winemaker at Punchdown Cellars. He moved to Oakland in 2014 and opened OAKLAND YARD in November 2016.
"My friend Daniel and I are wine drinkers for much the same reason: basically, we enjoy it. We enjoy it with food, friends, and family, with sunshine and music, dancing and conversation. Taking time for a glass of wine is, above all, an opportunity to relax with company, to share thoughts and connect. Often we’ll discuss what we’re drinking, because we’re also fascinated with it; how it smells and tastes, and how that’s affected by where the wine comes from and how it is produced. At work and at wine bars, restaurants, picnics, and in our kitchens and our dinner tables, Daniel and I have drunk oceans of wine together, and I still like drinking wine with Daniel. Throughout my twenty-eight years of restaurant and retail work, from upstate New York motel dishwashing, to Chez Panisse or Smith & Vine, I’ve had the good fortune of tasting a great array of wines. I’ve developed my own preferences among these wines, but I’ve also learned what kinds of wines other people like to drink by what they buy and how they talk about them. It can sometimes sound silly – talking about wine - but it can get you what you really want to be drinking and I think it’s more rewarding and revealing when we attempt to communicate with curiously subjective language about this slippery beverage than when someone tells you something like: ‘I’m a big lobster person’". - Max
"Our shop name is a nod to the Oakland Shafter Yard here on 40th St at this location when the Northern Electric Railway (later the Sacramento Northern Railroad) ran through here. We like the idea of people connecting, literally and figuratively, here at the shop. Some nights we might be the destination, but more than anything we hope to be a stop on folks’ journeys- on their way to something amazing. And we carry wines that go with amazing. Fresh, lively wines that are balanced, expressive and versatile. Adventure provisions. Most of the time I’m less interested in what wine goes with fish and more about what goes with fishing. More than this course or that, I really want people to pair these wines with the whole party… or a trip to the coast or an an amazing hike! What pairs with camping? Or an afternoon in the park? What pairs with awesome?” - Daniel