Wine and Scuffles At Lake Merritt and Alta Vina
420 3rd Street
Oakland, CA 94607
My girlfriend is a Bay Area native, but from the suburbs, so Oakland’s a little different to her. I’m jaded, having lived here for so long, but can see things from her point of view, and I’ve taken to avoiding certain perfectly safe but undeniably “edgy “ routes to places. But, sometimes Oakland will just throw you a curveball, like walking around the lake and having someone emerge from the bushes, striding as if he realized that he was late for a zoom meeting, but completely covered in leaves.
Saturday, I was startled by a couple of unaccompanied youths who imprudently elected to jaywalk behind me. That really freaked me out! I know how to jaywalk, but I’m a solo act! Don’t mama duck me! Fortunately, I didn’t say any of that out loud. I don’t think so anyway. But I shook them, cruising to the opposite side of Lakeshore.
I was thinking about how I’ve come to avoid riding around the lake on weekends. The hawkers are swell and all, the double parking and everything much less so. Just then, a group of adolescent, wannabe-influencer cyclists cruised by affecting their best hood rat impressions.
“You the worst cameraman ever, nigga”
“Why you ain’t stop?”
“Nigga, what breaks I’m gonna stop with?”
Yes, it was quite gratuitous. I was not crazy about these kids already, but what are you gonna do? I guess they wanted to retry capturing the moment and decided to salmon (riding backwards against traffic) back to their starting point, some of them on the sidewalk. Then I heard a scuffle.
Just a few hundred feet up, they’d gotten into it with a middle-aged dude who looked like Herc from The Wire (there’s your dated ref of the day). There was one of him, and I’d say a solid five of them. There were some weak, interventionist honks from passersby but little else. I shuddered to think of the story, “man killed by half a dozen squirrel sized assailants as passers by do nothing"
Please let me assure you, the following was a very calculated risk. I jogged up and the little shitheads immediately began to scatter/attack/scatter like the brave hearts they were.
The Alpha squirrel decided to speak up “He asked for it! “ As he scrambled to pick up his bicycle without his tail getting caught in the chain.
“All you little motherfuckers on one guy? He asked for that? Stop riding the wrong way.”
They were in retreat shit talking mode “You want some too?”
So I shifted into crazy old black man mode.
They had a token black friend with them, and I wanted to ask him what kind of a black man he expected to be, letting people talk that way around him. But the look of confused fear on their faces was so delicious, I was content with that.
Anyway, my mission for that day was to meet my friend Jenny at Alta Vina, a wine bar in Jack London Square. My exploration of wine is a pretty new thing, inspired by a recent visit to Spain. It was one of the number of things that I wanted to bring back with me from the trip. I also brought back the occasional siesta, an entitlement to the entire sidewalk, some general euro-chill, but thankfully, not a renewed smoking habit.
I’m not a big drinker and, while I do love an IPA, they can feel like having a mini Thanksgiving in a glass; stupor-inducing, bloating, and generally unsexy. I mean, come on, Christmas is bad, but they don’t even make Thanksgiving-themed porn, that’s how unsexy that holiday is. I’m pretty inexperienced, so I’ve had to rely on Jenny to guide me through some of Oakland’s wine outlets. Alta is new to both of us though.
Alta features a fairly substantial rotating selection of wines that center varietals from California and Mexico. Owner Henry was on hand for recommendations, tastes and pours. My preference is for reds, but I was curious about the orange.
“What makes an orange wine?“
I won’t mangle the sommelier’s expert and eloquent answer with a badly remembered “quote”, but it is essentially white wine aged in contact with the grape skins, imparting both a unique tint and flavor. You know, as amateur explanations go, that wasn’t half bad. Perhaps I have a future as a sommelier. OK, I’m already intimidated, imagining saying that word out loud versus just writing it, so I’ll stay on the drinking side of the counter.
We tasted the Casa Jipi Skin Contact from Baja California, a delicious herbaceous orange with hints of bitter citrus. Its label, a sketch of an orgy on an orange label, continued the name’s pun. Next up, the Tito Amarillo BU, a California wine, had a milder floral taste to it. It’s enjoying a bit of a cultural moment, having a bit part in “The Drama” with Zendaya and Robert Pattinson.
Alta Vina is nestled among the old, still in use warehouses of Jack Lennon Square on Third Street off Broadway. It has outdoor seating with barrels as the barriers. Inside is spacious, well lit with a bar at the far end. There’s abundance seating, though it wasn’t quite hopping when we arrived. Oakland Carnival was the same weekend and perhaps drawing crowds away.
“It’s busier later in the evening too. “ Henry reassured us. This Kulcha Vulcha is a bit of an early bird, so I couldn’t stick around to find out. I made my way home, making a note to return with m’lady at first opportunity.
“The freaks come out at night,” but here in the town, they’re out all hours. And sometimes, unknowingly, you’re one of them. I was satisfied that I’ve been at least one person’s “crazy Oakland” story that day, and chased it with some fancy vino.
