I was born with an innate sense of animism, a feeling that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence, or soul. Maybe we all start out this way, but as a child, I wouldn’t hurt a fly. Like many of us, I’ve carried some of these ideas - be they unscientific notions or deep knowledge - into adulthood, and I sometimes talk to my dog, curse a broken tool, or bid adieu to a familiar place...“Until next time, my dear, old, sandy Isle of Fire.”

This belief, or recognition, that we are not alone as humans, but rather inhabit a community with various beings, allows for a different sense of time. A Mayfly lives for only one or two days, while the Kimmeridgian limestone that makes Champagne, Chablis, and Sancerre so special, has been around for over one hundred and fifty million years. We exist between these lifespans, and among them. Does the fly feel hurried, or the stone ennui? We Temescaleros lost an old friend yesterday morning, when saws and crane came to 42nd and Shafter and dismantled an aged, towering redwood; the upward reach of a lifelong resident, one who’d witnessed decades of change, was gone in a matter of hours.

The wine world is full of old things - centuries-old cellars, farm equipment, and traditions - even hundred-year-old vines. When grape vines age, they mutate, develop diseases, and produce less and less fruit, but the little fruit they do manage to ripen is often more flavorful, and more representative of the distinct character of the place they’ve been living, than that of younger vines. Conventional commercial schools of enology recommend you rip out old vines and replant, but we like it when vignerons continue to make wine with gnarly, low-yielding, ancient plants. Old or young, whether planted by ancestors or carried to new continents in suitcases, grapevines, and our love of them, connect us with the earth and all the life around us. Come join us this week for a springtime glass or tasting flight at Oakland Yard, in celebration of new life and old age. Our old friend, the sun, will be here too, pleased to be out from behind the clouds.

TONIGHT - THURSDAY NIGHT FLIGHTS: Portuguese reds and Spanish whites
2022 Filipa Pato Dinamica Tinto (from 5 to 20-year-old vines) 2020 Paolo Laureano Vale da Torre
2020 Penedo Gordo Tinto Red
2022 Zudugarai Txakolina (from 10 to 40-year-old vines)
2022 Bodegas Gratias Sol Tardana
Brincadeiro Naturalmente Turbio
Tasting flights $15 from 5-9 and wines by the glass until 9pm

SATURDAY 3/16: Wines of Alsace
Hubert Meyer Crémant du Alsace
2022 Charles Frey Pinot Blanc
2022 Les Encuvés Macération Blanc (from 40-year-old vines)
2022 Kuentz Bas Pinot Noir (from 25 to 45-year-old vines)
Tasting flights $18 from 2-6pm and wines by the glass until 9pm

Cheers,
Max