Tea Leaf Salad Meets Mosel Riesling Magic
Temescal · Oakland · Burmese · Visit Website ↗
Reviewed June 23, 2026
Wingman Metrics
You're not walking into Burma Superstar expecting a wine program, and that's exactly what makes it interesting. The list is short — 11 wines, full stop — but whoever put it together was paying attention. Touraine Sauvignon Blanc and Mosel Riesling on a Burmese menu in Temescal? Someone actually thought about this.
The list spans California, France, Germany, and Oregon, which sounds like a lot until you realize it's 11 bottles doing all the heavy lifting. The white side is sharper: a Mosel Riesling and a Touraine Sauvignon Blanc are genuinely smart calls for a cuisine built on fermented flavors, herbs, and heat. Reds lean predictable — Paso Robles shows up twice, Sonoma and a Saint-Émilion round it out — but a Beaujolais-Villages sneaks in and earns its place. The Willamette Valley Pinot Noir is an interesting outlier that suggests someone on the buying side has taste.
Everything on the list is available by the glass, which is the right call for a restaurant where you're sharing five dishes and nobody agrees on what to drink. Glass pours run $10–$14, which is honest pricing for Oakland right now. No rotation program in sight — this is a set list — but it's a set list with enough range that you can find your glass.
Mosel Riesling — $10/glass, ~$40/bottle
Mosel Riesling at $40 a bottle is already punching above its price tag, and when you're eating Tea Leaf Salad or Samusa Soup, it's the most useful wine on the table. Off-dry German Riesling handles fermented, funky, spicy food better than almost anything else you can order here.
Beaujolais-Villages
Most people at Burma Superstar are grabbing the Paso Robles red on autopilot, but the Beaujolais-Villages is the smarter move if you want red wine with this food. Light, high-acid, low tannin — it doesn't fight the cuisine, it gets out of the way and lets the Rainbow Salad do its thing.
Saint-Émilion, Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a strange fit here and it shows. Right-bank Merlot-dominant blends want red meat and time; they don't want fermented tea leaves and shrimp paste. You're paying Bordeaux prices for a wine that's going to feel out of place at this table.
Touraine Sauvignon Blanc + Tea Leaf Salad
The Tea Leaf Salad is one of the most complex bites in Oakland — fermented, herbaceous, crunchy, a little funky — and Loire Sauvignon Blanc is built exactly for this moment. The wine's green herb notes mirror the salad's freshness while its acidity cuts through the fermented tea leaf depth. It's a genuinely good match, not a compromise.
Wednesday — Wine-Down Wednesday: 50% off all bottles of wine, plus waived corkage fee if you bring your own. Oakland location only, no reservation required for the deal.
🎲 The Bottom Line
Burma Superstar's wine list shouldn't work this well for what it is — a short, unpretentious card at a casual Burmese spot — but a few smart picks and a legitimate Wine-Down Wednesday deal make it worth engaging with. Show up on a Wednesday, order the Riesling, get the Tea Leaf Salad, and stop overthinking it.
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One wine list review, one adventure pick, one quick tip, and a personal note. Every week. Under 500 words.