lummi island wine tasting* jan 21 ’22
Wine Shop Schedule Update
*Sorry, no wine tasting again this weekend or next.
Our present intention is to reopen for wine tasting and shopping on our usual schedule on Friday, February 4…right after Groundhog Day (our favorite Cross-Quarter Day!) We then expect to continue our usual hours from 4-6pm on both Friday and Saturday each weekend, weather and Covid permitting.
Fingers crossed!
Friday Bread This Week
Until we reopen, Bread pickup will be at Island Bakery. If you are on the bread email list, you will have received order and pickup info from Janice.
Current expectations are that bread pickup will return to the wine shop after we reopen.
Mailing List Issues
We have still not found an adequate solution to the increasing failure of the email service that delivers our weekly missive to our subscribers, but hope to resolve it before we open. In the meantime, some time may pass between when we post and when you receive it. (As we write, it is now about 9:30pm on Thursday, Jan 20).
Stay safe. We miss you!
lummi island wine tasting jan 6 ’22
COVID NOTES
As you all know, the country and the world are going through yet another Covid wave, this time the Ό (Omicron) variant, the most contagious mutation yet. All indications are that by this time next month the wave will have crested around here, and a LOT more people (mostly those who selected not to get vaccinated) will have been immunized the hard way, by surviving it.
More immunity for more people is a good thing, and the rapid spread of the Ό variant seems to be hitting enough unvaxed to improve overall immunity substantially without requiring their consent.
In any case, we have not yet set a date for reopening the wine shop for Aught-22. We are presently closed pending annual inventory and watching for the abatement of the Omicron Wave and the arrival of friendlier weather! Please stay tuned!
Friday Bread This Week
Because of the uncertainty of Island road conditions on Friday, Janice will be advising you about alternative arrangements for bread pickup this week, possibly at the Grange/Post Office. Watch for an email from her with details.
Read on for this week’s bread selections…
Each Sunday bread offerings for the coming Friday are emailed to the mailing list by Island Bakery. Orders returned by the 5 pm Tuesday deadline are baked and available for pickup each Friday in front of the wine shop from 4:00 – 5:30 pm. To get on the bread order mailing list, click on the Contact Us link at the top of the page and fill out the form.
Over the years the bakery has established a rotating list of several dozen breads and pastries from which two different artisan breads and a pastry are selected each week.
This week’s deliveries:
Four Seed Buttermilk – This is a new bread that sounded intriguing. While it includes all the elements of whole wheat, it does so separately by adding cracked wheat and bran in to the bread flour instead of milling whole wheat berries. It also has buttermilk and oil which will make for a tender bread as well as add a little tang. Finally it is finished with with a bit of honey and sunflower pumpkin and sesame seeds and some toasted millet – $5/loaf
Fig Anise – One of the more popular breads in the rotation. Made with a sponge that is fermented overnight, then the final dough is mixed with bread flour and fresh milled whole wheat. Honey, dried figs and anise bring in all the flavors of the mediterranean. A great flavorful bread – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Fruit & Spice Rolls – A break from the sweeter holiday desserts and pastries, these rolls are almost half whole wheat but still with plenty of butter, sugar, and egg for flavor and a tender crumb. Dried cranberries and golden raisins plus fresh orange peel and juice and an interesting mix of spices of anise, cinnamon, mace and cardamon round out the flavors along with a sprinkle of demerara sugar before baking for that extra bit of sweetness and crunch. An interesting and flavorful bun to have with your morning coffee or tea. – 2/$5
The Economics of the Heart: Basic Needs
We were in Portland with our trailer over the Holidays, somewhat comfortably marooned at an upscale RV park (with a pool!) just south of the city, and about 20 minutes from family events. Over Xmas and New Year’s the Pacific Northwest was in a rainy-snowy deep-freeze for pretty much the entire time, and we were stuck in Portland until the weather improved here on the Island, which was hard hit by snow and below-freezing temperatures. The very granular weather forecasts available now online allowed us to start home on New Year’s Eve (a Friday) and get to the Island by mid-day Sunday, with overnight bivouacs in Seattle and Mt. Vernon. Not to mention a salty and drenching front-row spot on the ferry in a 40-kt headwind Sunday afternoon.
The weather coated not just the car from the spray, but also much of the trip with anxiety and unanticipated difficulties. So naturally it has been a HUGE RELIEF to be HOME! Whew!
*****
As this is being written on the first anniversary of the attempted Coup and storming of the National Capitol Building on January 6, 2021 aimed at overturning the results of the 2020 election and keeping the Tweetster in power, it seems appropriate to muse a bit on our collective national situation a year after those events.
For starters, I woke up suddenly from a dream early this morning yelling “NOOOooooo!” At that moment in the dream a huge and magnificent futuristic passenger aircraft, possibly even a space vessel, very long, sleek, and powerful, had just taken off and was rising majestically into the sky. In the context of the dream (mostly forgotten) I knew that this event represented a crowning human achievement, the culmination of decades, perhaps centuries of development. It was buoyant with both promise and fulfillment.
Suddenly, a web of several Gigantic, Jagged Lightning Bolts exploded from the empty blue sky around it and blew the ship to pieces. THAT’S when I woke up yelling. And while there were a number of fragmentary memories of other parts of the same dream, they didn’t cohere into an explicit narrative. But I did find a lot of emotional pieces that built their own narrative about our collective and individual Humanistic Needs and how severely we have All been stressed over the past two years.
Though some assert that our country is “Christian,” the underlying principles of the Constitution are quite essentially Humanistic, more in line with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs than either Testament of the Bible. The key principle here is the idea of Hierarchy: until the most basic needs are met, satisfaction of “higher” needs must wait. Air Water. Food. Warmth. Safety. These are all sine qua non essentials. Until these are met, philosophy and religion are Luxuries that will have to wait.
In the last few years we have seen more and more people around the world and across our own country suddenly lose their homes, animals, belongings, and family members to fires, hurricanes, floods, droughts, tornadoes (Climate Change is Here, Now, Real, and Indifferent), and political oppression over which they had no control. The bottom line for all of us to feel okay with our lives is to feel Safe and Loved. This is not complicated. This is the kind of social animal we are. We need to belong; we need to have physical and emotional nourishment; and we need a sense of security for ourselves and our tribes: a sense of Home.
While it is becoming increasingly clear that the events of last January 6 were part of a deliberate plot to overturn the results of the 2020 election, it is also beginning to look as if a significant number of the non-militia, ordinary citizens that took part may have been driven by the mistaken belief that the election had been stolen by enemies they were told were a threat to their basic well-being. A large percentage of these believers got their “news” from Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and the Gang at Fox News, many of whom now appear to be co-conspirators in the plot to keep the Tweetster in power indefinitely– the first American Dictator.
The America where I grew up in Maine in the Fifties was not complicated. Ike was a kindly President. The War was over. My parents worked and we got by well enough. The Russians were out there somewhere, but we were confident. We were safe. We could trust our leaders to do the right thing. We felt grateful and fortunate to be Americans.
At an unconscious emotional level, because no broader or deeper sense of satisfaction is possible until we feel safe, it is quite simple to manipulate us by making us feel Threatened by some vaguely defined Enemy. This is the stuff of 1984 Big Brother Authoritarianism, and the essence of the Big Lie Republicans are using to tear our country apart: You are not safe because Those People, those Socialists, those Coastal Elites, those Democrats, want to take away your Stuff. Lucky for you Big Brother is here to protect you. And your stuff.
We are all vulnerable to these threats, even more so after four years of the Tweetster and two years of Covid. We all need to take a long, slow, deep breath…hold it for a few seconds…and slowly exhale Aaaahhhh……..and let the next inhalation happen by itself.
lummi island wine tasting dec 17 ’21
Current Covid Protocols
Tastings this weekend will be both Friday and Saturday from 4-6 pm, with attendance subject to our ongoing Covid requests:
— You must have completed a full Covid vaccination sequence to participate;
— We ask all guests to maintain mindful social distance from people outside your regular “neighborhood pods.”
Holiday Schedule
Please note we will be closed for both Christmas weekend (Dec 24-25), and New Year’s weekend (Dec 31-Jan 1).
However, we will be OPEN as usual for Friday Bread Pickup and wine tasting THIS WEEKEND, December 17-18.
Last tasting for Aught-21…!
Friday Bread This Week
Each Sunday bread offerings for the coming Friday are emailed to the mailing list by Island Bakery. Orders returned by the 5 pm Tuesday deadline are baked and available for pickup each Friday at the wine shop from 4:00 – 5:30 pm. To get on the bread order mailing list, click on the Contact Us link at the top of the page and fill out the form.
Over the years the bakery has established a rotating list of several dozen breads and pastries from which two different artisan breads and a pastry are selected each week.
This week’s deliveries:
Italian Breakfast Bread – A delicious sweet, but not too sweet, bread. Made with bread flour eggs, yogurt, a little sugar and vanilla as well as dried cranberries golden raisins and candied lemon peel. Perfect for breakfast as toast or even better for french toast – $5/loaf
Flax Seed Currant Ciabatta – Made with a poolish that ferments some of the flour and water overnight before being mixed with the final ingredients which includes a nice mix of bread flour and fresh milled whole wheat and rye flours. Loaded up with flax seeds and dried currants for a delicious bread. This bread is mixed with a lot of water that makes for a very slack dough so it can’t be weighed out and shaped like other bread, it is just cut into pieces. A really flavorful artisan loaf – $5/piece
and pastry this week…
Cranberry, Pecan, White Chocolate Muffins – Inspired by a bar available this time of year from a well known coffee shop, that might be called something like cranberry bliss or something. Delightful muffins chock full of everything in the name, fresh cranberries, toasted pecans and white chocolate chips. – 4/$5
Wine of the Week: Greywacke Pinot Noir ’16 New Zealand $32
Most simply, greywacke is a type of sandstone with a lot of rock grain and fragments in it, kind of a lumpy batter that set up before it was completely stirred. It is believed to have formed by mudslides along a continental shelf. Greywacke is made up of dull-colored sandy rocks that are mostly grey, brown, yellow, or black which can occur in thick or thin beds, and which bear some similarity to local formations of “Chuckanut sandstone” that we see on our own shores here on Lummi Island and around the San Juan Islands.
Last year we learned that many of the formations at the Aiston Preserve (recently acquired for restoration and preservation by the Lummi Island Heritage Trust) and much of the southern half of Lummi Island contain significant deposits of greywacke. These formations are about 150 million years old, and overlay basalt and chert from an even more ancient sea floor.
Greywacke is also a major part of the geological structure of New Zealand, and just a couple of years ago we learned there is a NZ winery of the same name. We have been stocking their sauvignon blanc and pinot noir for a couple of years now, and so far it has been universally satisfying. The rocky soil gives the wines a complex minerality with aromas and flavors of dark fruit and nuances of cedar, earth, and smoke.
Winemaker Kevin Judd was the longtime winemaker at the consistently highly regarded Cloudy Bay winery before starting his own winery at Greywacke in 2008. It’s good! (read more)
The Economics of the Heart: Looking for the Light
As 2021 comes to something of a whimpering close during this Holiday season, we depart from our usual laments to scratch the ground for any signs of Hope for the future.
COVID…
has kept us under siege for two very long years. We seniors in particular are grateful for the years of scientific research that paved the way for the rapid development and deployment of effective vaccines. Though the future might present more variants, we are all lucky ducks to have had this technology so readily available.
The good news is that while we are still threatened by the pandemic and the many vaccine deniers, we have much more freedom to move about safely than a year ago; many places are approaching “herd immunity” vaccination levels; and we have developed a robust technology to respond quickly to new variants.
The “BIG LIE...
that has been kept fueled and burning hot for over a year now by Republican leaders and their Fox co-conspirators broadcasting 24/7 that the 2020 election was stolen from the twice-impeached Donald Trump, is starting to collide with findings of the House Committee investigating those events. This week the Committee reported detailed evidence about the scope of the conspiracy to keep Trump in power, and indicated with some conviction (pun intended) that over the next few months they will provide an increasingly detailed roadmap of the attempted coup and the Trump loyalists who planned and orchestrated it.
The good news here is the strong likelihood that over the next few months the committee will be able to outline in even greater detail the timeline, participants, documents, conversations, meetings, and actions of the conspirators as they sought to overturn the results of the election.
Climate Change…
has delivered a Blockbuster Year of record-breaking numbers and intensity of forest fires, rain and flooding in some places, drought and heat waves in others; the sixth consecutive year of above-average hurricane numbers and intensities, and the seventh in a row with the first named storm occurring in May instead of June or July. And all of that has now been topped off in the last few days with the astonishingly destructive tornado disaster in the the Southeast, where even some Republicans might start believing that climate change is Real.
The small ray of light that could come from these dramatic increases in the destructive impacts of climate change is that their increasing number, magnitude, and economic costs might help make them impossible to ignore.
Sadly, all of these “hopeful signs” are predicated on the notion that when things get Bad Enough, ordinary people will start realizing the facts before their eyes over the repetitive slogans from their puppeteers. Still, during this holiday season we can all light a candle and dedicate its light to a brighter future for our planet, our human brothers and sisters, and all living things.
Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings;
Radiating kindness over the entire world
-from the Metta Sutta
This week’s $5 tasting: (since we wound up pouring distributor samples for our tasting last weekend, this weekend we will do the tasting menu we listed last week)
Charles Krug Napa Valley Chardonnay ’17 Napa $18
The cool, foggy North Bay/Carneros region delivers a nice balance of acidity and ripeness, rounded out nicely by barrel fermentation and sur lie aging, producing aromas of tropical fruit and citrus blossom with flavors of peach and pear, and a velvety texture.
Capcanes Mas Donis Old Vines ‘18 Spain $14
Velvety mouthfeel and texture; wild red and black berry flavors, with cherry, spices and herbs; medium to full-bodied with soft and velvet tannins and nicely refreshing finish.
Greywacke Pinot Noir ’16 New Zealand $32
Delicious aromas of juicy blackberries, blueberries and strawberry jam, with suggestions of black olives, cedar and a hint of lavender. Finely structured palate shows red and black fruit with earthy, smoky nuances.
lummi island wine tasting dec 10 ’21
Current Covid Protocols
Tastings this weekend will be both Friday and Saturday from 4-6 pm, with attendance subject to our ongoing Covid requests:
— You must have completed a full Covid vaccination sequence to participate;
— We ask all guests to maintain mindful social distance from people outside your regular “neighborhood pods.”
Holiday Schedule
Please note we will be closed for both Christmas weekend (Dec 24-25), and New Year’s weekend (Dec 31-Jan 1).
However, we will be OPEN as usual for Friday Bread Pickup and Fri-Sat wine tasting THIS WEEKEND, December 10-11, and NEXT WEEKEND, December 17-18.
Friday Bread This Week
Each Sunday bread offerings for the coming Friday are emailed to the mailing list by Island Bakery. Orders returned by the 5 pm Tuesday deadline are baked and available for pickup each Friday at the wine shop from 4:00 – 5:30 pm. To get on the bread order mailing list, click on the Contact Us link at the top of the page and fill out the form.
Over the years the bakery has established a rotating list of several dozen breads and pastries from which two different artisan breads and a pastry are selected each week.
This week’s deliveries:
Poolish Ale Bread – The preferment here is a poolish, made with bread flour, a bit of yeast and a nice ale for the liquid and fermented overnight. Mixed the next day with bread flour and fresh milled whole wheat. This makes a great all around bread with a nice crisp crust – $5/loaf
Buckwheat Walnut & Honey – A flavorful artisan bread also made with a poolish, fresh milled buckwheat and bread flour. Buckwheat is actually a seed (not a grain) and closer in the plant family to rhubarb and sorrel than to wheat and contains no gluten (note that this bread does include some wheat flour). Buckwheat has an earthy flavor that in this bread is balanced with a little honey. Some toasted walnuts add a nice crunch. This bread goes well with meats and cheeses – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Rum Raisin Brioche: A delicious brioche dough full of eggs, butter and sugar. Filled with golden raisins and chunks of almond paste and (wait there’s more!) topped with a chocolate glaze before baking.- 2/$5
Wine of the Week: Greywacke Pinot Noir ’16 New Zealand $32
Most simply, greywacke is a type of sandstone with a lot of rock grain and fragments in it, kind of a lumpy batter that set up before it was completely stirred. It is believed to have formed by mudslides along a continental shelf. Greywacke is made up of dull-colored sandy rocks that are mostly grey, brown, yellow, or black which can occur in thick or thin beds, and which bear some similarity to local formations of “Chuckanut sandstone” that we see on our own shores here on Lummi Island and around the San Juan Islands.
Last year we learned that many of the formations at the Aiston Preserve (recently acquired for restoration and preservation by the Lummi Island Heritage Trust) and much of the southern half of Lummi Island contain significant deposits of greywacke. These formations are about 150 million years old, and overlay basalt and chert from an even more ancient sea floor.
Greywacke is also a major part of the geological structure of New Zealand, and just a couple of years ago we learned there is a NZ winery of the same name. We have been stocking their sauvignon blanc and pinot noir for a couple of years now, and so far it has been universally satisfying. The rocky soil gives the wines a complex minerality with aromas and flavors of dark fruit and nuances of cedar, earth, and smoke.
Winemaker Kevin Judd was the longtime winemaker at the consistently highly regarded Cloudy Bay winery before starting his own winery at Greywacke in 2008. It’s good! (read more)
The Economics of the Heart: Media, Politics, and Mindfulness
In the Fall of 2017, 60 Minutes ran a special edition hosted by Oprah Winfrey, in which 14 Michigan voters came together to meet and talk about their approval/disapproval of the Trump administration. Half were pro-Trump, and half were anti-Trump. The ensuing discussion revealed deeply embedded beliefs and a general unwillingness for those on either side to budge even an inch from their entrenched positions.
Six months later, Oprah repeated the event with the same people. Surprisingly, the groups had met on their own in several venues between the meetings. Somehow, although they did not change their minds about pro/anti-Trumpiness, they developed a certain rapport and acceptance. But while transcripts of the discussion show the development of enough respect to listen to opposing views, finding common ground remained more elusive.
In June of 2018, Amanda Ripley, a journalist and fellow at the Emerson Collective, wrote a fascinating piece about the need for a different kind of journalism in today’s highly polarized environment. Her analysis explores in a compelling way how journalists can broaden conversations in ways that build inclusion and avoid polarization. She makes a strong case that an important key is that “while humans share a tendency to simplify and demonize, we also share a desire for understanding.”
Therefore, she argues, the direction of more effective communication is to explore issues and people’s feelings about them more deeply, and she identifies five guidelines journalists could use with people when writing stories. As I read them, my decades of training and practice in Hakomi, Feldenkrais, Tai chi, and Zen started lighting up all kinds of connections: the element that all five have in common is quite simple: invite people to explore their viewpoints mindfully!
The easiest way to think about this is to imagine ordinary consciousness as the surface of an ocean. It’s a very busy place, with a Lot of Noise from wind, waves, and currents. The simplest way to gain insight into deeper layers of our own consciousness is to close our eyes and shift our focus away from thinking mind and focus on our physical and emotional experiences in the present moment.
At the conscious level we can espouse particular beliefs with great fervor. At the unconscious level there is a long personal story about how each belief came into being– usually in childhood as a defense against being hurt…again. Like when a rabbit knows you see it and it freezes, following its deep-wired internal imperative: Don’t Look Like Something to Eat!”
The Big Takeaway here is that our Media Universe has become Seriously Toxic. Like 2001’s Supercomputer Hal 9000, our media and internet feedback mechanisms are Stuck and must be unplugged and reprogrammed. Amanda Ripley’s article is recommended to read and share widely if we (including journalists!) are to wake up from the collective trance which is threatening everything we all hold most dear.
“Stop, Dave…my Mind is going… my Mind is going… I can feel it… I can feel it…”
This week’s $5 tasting:
Capcanes Mas Donis Old Vines ‘18 Spain $14
Velvety mouthfeel and texture; wild red and black berry flavors, with cherry, spices and herbs; medium to full-bodied with soft and velvet tannins and nicely refreshing finish.
Charles Krug Napa Valley Chardonnay ’17 Napa $18
The cool, foggy North Bay/Carneros region delivers a nice balance of acidity and ripeness, evoked nicely by barrel fermentation and sur lie aging, producing aromas of tropical fruit and citrus blossom with flavors of peach and pear.
Greywacke Pinot Noir ’16 New Zealand $32
Delicious aromas of juicy blackberries, blueberries and strawberry jam, with suggestions of black olives, cedar and a hint of lavender. Finely structured palate shows red and black fruit with earthy, smoky nuances.
2072 Granger Way