Like a pothead in a dispensary, or a prep cook in a knife store, I experience an uncommon level of excitement in a wine shop. Whenever I travel, I visit the local wine merchants, out of curiosity, and to support the dwindling stock of brick and mortar small fries. Wine stores come in many styles.

There are the dusty liquor warehouses with stacks of Barefoot Peach Fruitscato, and there are the tin ceilinged, copper plated, Edison bulb lit museums of esoterica, with a miniscule selection of expensive Vin de France, all with cartoon labels. And for those of us who don’t want our wine to taste like Coca Cola or kombucha, there is everything in between. Wine lovers in the east bay are fortunate enough to have a number of decent wine shops to choose from, and I shop at most of them, but only Oakland Yard makes me feel like the proverbial kid in a candy store.

My favorite wine shops have:

1) a bountiful selection, with some familiar classics, and also wines I’m unfamiliar with. I’m always up for trying something new, but if there’s no Muscadet, and the only Beaujolais is from Louis Jadot, then I know I’m in the wrong store.

2) no bullshit, aside from an acknowledgement of its value as vineyard fertilizer. I’m looking for a purposeful lack of lifestyle-focussed products, flavored wines, and brands concocted by Constellation, E&J Gallo, TWG, Trinchero, or Bronco, the five enormous corporations that industrially produce more than two thirds of the ‘wine’ sold in the USA. Boardroom branding cannot erase the unglamorous fact that every bottle of wine is an agricultural product made with dirt, sweat, and manure.

3) salespeople who are knowledgeable and available, but not pushy or snooty. As with an excellent bookstore, or record store, part of the value of a quality wine store is that it comes with actual people, not algorithms, who delight in learning patrons’ preferences and turning them on to other wines they may enjoy.

4) visual appeal; it is clean and orderly, with neatly displayed bottles, and maybe even some fresh flowers.

5) good vibes, with thoughtfully chosen music, genuine smiles, and a a spirit of openness in which I can be myself, and feel that I belong there.

If you find - as do I and those who nominated us, thank you! - that Oakland Yard meets your criteria for wine shop excellence, then please help us thrive and grow by choosing us on Oakland Magazine’s people’s choice Best of Oakland ballot. We’re the very last category in the Food & Drink section, and the polls close on May 31st at 11:00pm Pacific Time, so get your votes in while you can!

Click HERE TO VOTE!

Thank you for your continuing support,

Max