lummi island wine tasting oct 22 ’21
Current Covid Protocols
Looks like a rainy/windy weekend ahead. This past Friday we had a small group of regulars hang out a bit after bread pickup…enough for a sense of community without triggering Covid anxiety. Nice!
Last Saturday was a taste of the quiet off-season pubby days of close neighbors and familiar faces. Very low-key.
This week we will again offer indoor tastings on both Friday and Saturday from 4-6 pm, with our familiar Covid requests:
— You must have completed a full Covid vaccination sequence to participate;
— We ask all to maintain mindful social distance from people outside your regular “neighborhood pods.”
Friday Bread
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.
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.
If you would like to be on the bread order mailing list, click on the Contact Us link at the top of the page and fill out the form.
This week’s deliveries:
Pan de Cioccolate – This delicious chocolate artisan bread is NOT a dessert pastry. Rather it is a rich chocolate bread made with a levain, bread flour, and fresh milled rye flour, honey for sweetness, vanilla and plenty of dark chocolate. Makes GREAT toast and even better French toast! – $5/loaf.
Levain w/ Dried Cherries and Pecans – Made from an overnight levain sourdough starter. This allows the fermentation process to start and the gluten to start developing. The final dough is made with the levain, bread flour and fresh milled whole wheat and then loaded up with dried cherries and toasted pecans. A nice rustic loaf that goes well with meats and cheese – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Black Sesame & Candied Lemon Brioche: A delicious brioche dough full of eggs, butter and sugar. Filled with fresh lemon zest and candied lemon and as if that wasn’t enough, topped with a black sesame streusel before baking…Good, they be!! – 2/$5
Wine of the Week:
This week we return to an old favorite wine from a favorite Washington winemaker, Javier Alfonso of Pomum Cellars in Woodinville. The Pomum label now has its own estate vineyard, Konnowac Vineyard located at 1100 ft elevation in the northwest corner of the Rattlesnake Hills AVA in the Yakima Valley, which provides fruit for most of the French varietals.
In addition, because Javier grew up in the Ribero del Duero region of Spain, he also makes a number of Spanish wines under the Idilico label, and he often refers to tempranillo as simply tinto, as if it was understood that “red wine” is just another way of saying tempranillo. All his wines therefore display his preference for highly drinkable wines with rich, evolving, and lingering flavors, silky tannic depth and length, and a Muse that beckons “hey, Amigo, un vaso mas!”
This weekend we are pouring his Idilico garnacha, a lovely and engaging wine that definitely displays its winemaker’s fingerprints.
The Economics of the Heart: The Rising Costs of Ego
In the last few days the news cycle has presented us with a with several subtle harbingers of Our Future with regard to climate change and the very real threat of economic extinction of human civilization and millions of living species.
“We assess that climate change will increasingly exacerbate risks to US national security interests as the physical impacts increase and geopolitical tensions mount.”
- Our National Intelligence agencies have just released a report outlining how the accelerating impacts of climate change will be increasing a broad array of security threats to the United States, and by implication, to civilization itself as many countries face desertification, devastating wildfires, and economic collapse. We are already seeing the beginnings of mass migrations from failing economies from North Africa to Europe, from Afghanistan to neighboring countries, and to the US from Central America. These will get worse at an increasing rate determined by how quickly and how much, if at all, we humans are able to cut our carbon footprints on our World.
“The Freedom to Vote Act is therefore able to counteract some of these state Republican measures in a way that the For the People Act, introduced back in January, does not.” -The Nation
2. Waking up yesterday morning I had this image: 74 million Democrats and their US Senators are all on board a gigantic plane that has been flying around DC for months preparing to land. That’s because shortly after takeoff, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema took over the cockpit and locked the door. Early on we thought they wanted some concessions, and that if we gave them they would land the plane safely, and we would all go about our lives in a better world for what they had done.
After the first month we were still anxious to please them and also anxious about not pleasing them. After the second month, when the menu was down to soggy crackers and recycled urine-water, we started getting grumpy. Now, after four months, and we are all pooping in the aisles and kids are whimpering, we gag on their political sadism and take their threats seriously. Now we see that that they will crash our plane into the Beating Heart of Mother Earth if we don’t let them strangle Mother Earth more slowly over the next couple of decades.
All of which is to say, probably easier just to write them bigger checks for their votes than Big Coal can offer Manchin or Big Pharma can offer Sinema. Seems like the best choice all around, let’s do it!
“There is no middle ground between the arsonist and the firefighter. ” – Democracy Docket
3. Yesterday’s “demonstration vote” on the simple matter of bringing the new Freedom To Vote Act to the Senate floor for mere discussion, while not surprising, is still deeply disturbing. Majority Leader Schumer brought the bill to the Senate floor partially as a demonstration to Sen. Manchin, who months ago had promised to bring at least 11 Republican votes in favor of such a bill. Instead, not even one Republican Senator would even vote to allow discussion of the bill. Schumer voted against his own bill so that it could be brought back to the floor at a later date.
A brief review of #2 above highlights Mr. Manchin’s central role in this week’s musing. In truth it is turning out that a technical majority of one or two votes in the House or the Senate is a Stalemate, and it is an astonishing political achievement that the new administration has brought it as far as they have.
Don’t know about you, but another article we read this week by Charles Blow in the NYT convinced us that as desirable as many of the goals of proposed legislation are for promoting the general welfare of our entire national family and its long term future, we have come to believe that at this moment in our history, our first priority must be to do whatever is necessary to establish and preserve the right of all citizens to vote and have their votes count equally. Even if we don’t get all we want, it will take longer for Republicans to take it all away. Again.
We are engaged in two wars, on different fronts but against the same enemy, our own human nature. All of our history is based on internecine warfare over everything more than one of us desires. Right now our entire planet lies on the chopping block. Like Joe Manchin it is ambivalent about human survival; to Gaia it’s just another play, another curtain, a brief intermission.
This week’s $5 tasting:
Folie a Deux Pinot Gris ’18 Sonoma $14
Guava, pineapple and lemon-lime flavors make for a fleshy, brightly layered expression of the varietal, both soft on the palate and crisp on the palate.
Los Arraez Lagares Spain $
60/40 Monastrell- Cab blend from Valencia; deep and dark aromas of juicy, ripe dark plums leading to palate that dances around flavors of plum and prune with notes of coffee and chocolate.
Idilico Garnacha ’14 Washington $18
Moderately saturated, showing flavors of cherry, strawberry, game and licorice, with flint and rock notes on the inviting nose. Graceful, pliant and sweet with a lingering, firm, ripely tannic finish.
lummi island wine tasting oct 15-16 ’21
Current Covid Protocols
Looks like a rainy/windy weekend ahead. This past Friday we had a small group of regulars hang out a bit after bread pickup…enough for a sense of community without triggering Covid anxiety.
Saturday interesting in that it marked the first time in our 15-year history that we had about several parties totaling about a dozen guests, and none of our familiar Island residents. However, one family group from California has owned a cabin near the cafe for about a hundred years, with lots of stories and memories.
We will again offer indoor tastings on both Friday and Saturday from 4-6 pm, with our familiar Covid rules:
— You must have completed a full Covid vaccination sequence to participate;
— We ask all to maintain mindful social distance from people outside your regular “neighborhood pods.”
Friday Bread
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.
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.
If you would like to be on the bread order mailing list, click on the Contact Us link at the top of the page and fill out the form.
This week’s deliveries:
Barley & Rye w/ Pumpkin Seeds – Made with a levain that is fermented overnight before the final dough is mixed with a nice mix of bread flour and fresh milled rye, barley and whole wheat flours. Some buttermilk makes for a tender crumb, honey for sweetness and toasted pumpkin seeds add to the flavor and texture. A really flavorful artisan loaf – $5/loaf
Kamut Levain – Kamut, also known as khorasan wheat, is an ancient grain that has more protein than conventional wheat. Some people who can’t tolerate wheat find kamut to be more digestible. The bread is made with a levain that is fermented overnight before being mixed with with bread flour and fresh milled whole kamut flour. It has a nutty, rich flavor and makes a golden color loaf. A great all around bread – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Chocolate Babka Rolls – A sweet pastry dough rolled with a chocolate filling and cut into individual rolls, baked in baking forms and brushed with sugar syrup. Good, they be!! – 2/$5
Wine of the Week: Chateau du Donjon “Grande Tradition” Minervois ’16
Back in October 2011, driving north from Carcasonne, we tracked down an old winery called Chateau Donjon, in the somewhat rustic region of Minervois. It was located in an old castle-and-former-monastery dating back to the 12th century, and less than 30 minutes from Carcasonne. We had been carrying these wines for several years, enjoying their reliable quality and modest prices, the two most important characteristics of wines we prefer to carry.
As it turned out, we arrived around mid-day on a Sunday, and knocked on the Door (which was ajar) (remember, this building is essentially a huge medieval castle, with a huge door like an old Cathedral!). As there was no answer, we were heading back to the car when the door opened and we met Jean Panis, the owner-winemaker, whose family had been making wine there for five hundred (we are not making this up!) years! Though the place was officially closed, he gave us a very brief tour and tasting in what must be one of the oldest rooms we have ever been in. Might have been a dungeon, or prayer room, or who-knows-what back in the 12th century.
The whole interaction took less than a half hour, yet felt like a very kind gift. Indeed, after we had left and were driving away, M. Panis came jogging across the street with a bottle of wine for us. Charmant, n’est-ce pas? All you need to know is that the wine he gave us is one we have carried for many years, and of which we have just restocked the most recent vintage. It tastes like Real Wine, and some of us are quite fond of it!
Chateau du Donjon “Grande Tradition” Minervois 2016 France $15
Powerful primary aromas of ripe black fruit and hints of strawberry/raspberry. Very dense on the palate, with black fruit and red cherry flavors. Firm, structured and exceptionally rich.
The Economics of the Heart: Questions of Value
The value of something to us as individuals is its ability to satisfy our wide-ranging needs. As Maslow pointed out, to feel okay with our lives we humans must satisfy physical needs for safety, security, and predictability as well as social needs for affection, attention, and approval. Life is an ongoing process of making the best choices we can to survive and thrive, as constrained by our own budgets in our local political economy.
The cost of something to us is the alternative benefit that we must forgo to get it. When we spend our time or money on something, we are signalling, at least for that moment, that we prefer it to any of the available alternatives. Sometimes we are very satisfied with the outcomes of our decisions, and sometimes not so much, especially if our means are limited. Whatever decisions we make both limit and create the conditions for our next decision. Or, as Jung suggested, as far as Republicans are concerned, the Collapse of Civilization they are Hell-bent on causing will “appear in their lives as Fate.”
Since the dawn of human civilization, many cultures have appeared, thrived for a time, and disappeared or dissolved into another. This theme was examined in depth by scientist and author Jared Diamond in his book Collapse. With our nation and our planet facing unprecedented stress from climate change, massive population pressure on increasingly fragile resources, and disturbing signs of environmental, cultural, and political upheaval around the globe, his research offers some potent observations worth our sober consideration.
Historically, Diamond found several consistent historical factors in the economic collapse of civilizations:
- Top five: Climate change, war, collapse of essential trade, environmental degradation, and the society’s ability to respond to these stresses;
- Population exceeding the practicable carrying capacity of the environment;
- The ability to use long-term planning to make bold, courageous, anticipatory decisions before problems reached crisis proportions;
- The courage to adapt values to changing circumstances.
If there is one consistent theme slithering in the rising tide of Authoritarianism across our country and across the globe, it is the ongoing descent from open democratic structures into feudal dictatorships. The mindset that led Easter Islanders to cut down their last remaining trees and make habitation there no longer possible is the same “anti-science” mindset Trumpian Republicans (i.e., most of ’em) are using to deny the existential threat of climate change, the election results of 2020, and the treasonous nature of the January 6 occupation of the National Capitol.
Now, here in America, an entire generation of Republicans, with their collective denial of the warnings of the best Science our species has developed about how things work, has set its sights on “permanent” control of the United States Government, even as they do their utmost to insure that, as with Rapa Nui, they blow us all up with their own Hubris-infested Petard.
This week’s $5 tasting:
Duck Pond Pinot Gris ’19 Oregon $13
Clean, fleshy pear aromas and flavors make for an appealing white wine, lightly spiced and bright on the finish with hints of freshly picked green herbs.
Cana’s Feast Bricco Red ’18 Washington $16
Ripe raspberry, boysenberry and cocoa on the nose. Full flavors of cherry, brown sugar, and coffee serve as a base for more subtle mineral and iron nuances. Generous acidity and tannic structure support a long, round finish.
Chateau du Donjon “ Tradition” Minervois ’16 France $15
Powerful primary aromas of ripe black fruit and hints of strawberry/raspberry. Very dense on the palate, with black fruit and red cherry flavors. Firm, structured and exceptionally rich.
lummi island wine tasting oct 8-9
Current Covid Protocols
Forecast is for little sun on Friday, and a bit of rain on Saturday, but definitely getting cooler. After some rumination, we will experiment with indoor tasting on both Friday and Saturday from 4-6 pm to see if it is feasible in what we hope are the waning months of Covid lockdown.
— You must have completed a full Covid vaccination sequence to participate;
— We ask all to maintain mindful social distance from people outside your regular “neighborhood pods.”
Friday Bread
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.
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.
If you would like to be on the bread order mailing list, click on the Contact Us link at the top of the page and fill out the form.
This week’s deliveries:
Semolina w/ Fennel & Raisins – A levain bread made with bread flour, semolina and some fresh milled whole wheat. A little butter for a tender crumb and fennel seeds and golden raisins round out the flavors. These flavors go really well with meats and cheese, but it also makes pretty darn good toast – $5/loaf
Whole Wheat Levain – Made with a sourdough starter built up over several days before a levain is made and fermented overnight to start fermentation and gluten development. The bread is made with levain and bread flour and about 25% fresh milled whole wheat for a ‘toothy’ crumb, great texture and flavor and a nice crisp crust. – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Cinnamon Rolls – Made with a rich dough of eggs, butter, and sugar, rolled out, spread with pastry cream, and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. Then rolled up and sliced into individual rolls for baking and topped with a yummy cream cheese glaze. Delicious!! – 2/$5
Wine of the Week: Ad Lucem Daystar Syrah Red Willow ’15 Oregon $34
For those of you (98%…?) who never took Latin, the rough translation of “Ad Lucem” is “Toward the Light.” It is also one of several labels used by Oregon wine industry pioneer Jerry Owen of Lady Hill Winery, who was a founding partner in the well-respected Owen Roe winery in 1999. Lady Hill Winery is across the road from Champoeg State Park in the northern Willamette Valley in Oregon, where his ancestors settled in 1850.
Jerry uses the Ad Lucem label for his Rhone varietals (grenache, syrah, mourvedre); Lady Hill for Bordeaux varietals (cab, cab franc, merlot, malbec), and Procedo for his “super-Tuscan” blends of Bordeaux and Italian varietals.
We have made it something of a habit to visit the winery whenever we bivouac at this very pleasant State Park, and have found it a pleasant destination with memorable wines and enjoyable conversations with staff and visitors. He has offered to drive up some weekend and pour some of his wines for all of us, and we hope we can make that happen when Covid allows.
The Economics of the Heart: Irreconcilable Differences
A recent column in the New York Times by Thomas Edsall explores this question: “Just who believes the claim that Donald Trump won in 2020 and that the election was stolen from him? Who are these tens of millions of Americans, and what draws them into this web of delusion?” The story then traces numerous statistical studies showing:
- They are disproportionately white, Republican, older, less educated, more conservative, and more religious-right;
- 60% agree that “immigrants are invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background;”
- Regardless of age, 69% of white Republicans were likely to agree that “the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump;”
- American right-wing organizations constituted 66 percent of all attacks and plots in the U.S. in 2019 and over 90 percent in 2020;
- They prefer an anti-egalitarian, anti-intellectual, group-based hierarchical social structure and the use of aggressive force to maintain it.
Psychologically, they feel dissed by the intellectual/liberal left, and identification with authoritarian groups provides a vicarious sense that their lives and opinions matter. The War on Facts is therefore thought to be driven by the rift between the intellectual left and the populist/anti-intellectual right.
This ties in with our observation that American conservative media has played a deliberate role in fostering distrust and disrespect for the political Left for a generation. Beginning with the FCC’s opening of public airwaves to unbridled political “hyperbole” in the late 80’s- early 90’s, launching Limbaugh, O’Reilly, and countless other “talk show hosts” on a targeted crusade to build distrust and even hatred of “liberal elites.” By 1995, Newt Gingrich had jumped on the same bandwagon and deeply damaged most remaining vestiges of political collegiality in Congress.
Since then the divergence of underlying values between parties has only gotten worse over time: Bush v. Gore–> tax cuts for the rich; 911; Iraq and Afghan invasions; Guantanamo; Abu Graib; extreme rendition; water boarding; ’04 election–> more tax cuts for the rich; economic collapse of ’08; stonewalling of Obama’s Supreme Court nomination…we could go on and on. There is a litany of some thirty years of increasing disrespect for the rights of individuals and deference to the interests of the rich and powerful. That our nation suddenly appears to be on the threshold of dissolution evokes a deep sense of Grief and Hopelessness.
Like any economic system, any representative government requires a set of common values, a set of rules, and will in the people to maintain and follow them. The scary prospect of the moment is that Republicans and Democrats may no longer have a “close enough” set of values to be able to make the compromises necessary to maintain a truly representative government. Given the nearly universal movements in Red-State legislatures to disenfranchise likely Democratic voters, it has become clear that without a new Voting Rights Act the electoral playing field will be heavily tilted to the Right just as the World squares off against the overwhelming forces of climate change and the increasing poverty, starvation, desertification, flooding, migrations, and war they will cause.
This week’s $5 tasting:
Casal Garcia Vinho Verde Portugal $10
A light wine that is marked by its beautiful citric colors and incredible freshness with with soft aromas of tropical fruits and citrus. A very balanced wine that finishes with a refreshing, crisp, and harmonious finish.
Olim Bauda La Villa Barbera d’Asti ’17 Italy $14
Aromas and flavors of dark, rich red berries and currants; rich, ripe style with lots of up-front fruit and beautiful cleansing acidity.
Ad Lucem Daystar Syrah Red Willow ’15 Oregon $34
Subtle vanilla and mulled plum meld with ripe berries, rich, blackberry liquor and intricate barrel spices. Red and black fruits lead the weighted, lingering mouthfeel and sweet, juicy finish. Rich and balanced, a beautiful wine at its peak.
lummi island wine tasting oct 1-2 ’21
Current Covid Protocols
This weekend’s forecast is for relatively dry weather, maybe even a little sun, so we will have outside tasting as an option both Friday and Saturday.
We tried a little indoor tasting last Friday, and people were having such a good time that some degree of Covid mindfulness was lost for a bit.
We will try it again this weekend by being open for wine tasting and sales Friday and Saturday from 4-6pm, with the following guidelines:
- You must have completed a full Covid vaccination protocol to participate;
- We ask all to maintain appropriate social distancing from people outside your regular “neighborhood pods.”
Friday Bread
Each Friday Island Bakery delivers fresh bread ordered by customer email earlier in the week. Each Sunday offerings for the coming Friday are emailed to the mailing list. Orders must be returned by 5 pm on Tuesday for pickup at the wine shop the following Friday from 4-5:30.
Over the years the bakery has established a rotating list of several dozen breads and pastries from which are selected two different artisan breads and a pastry each week.
If you would like to be on the bread order mailing list, click on the Contact Us link at the top of the page and fill out the form.
This week’s pickup:
Breton – Incorporates the flavors of the french Brittany region. Bread flour and fresh milled buckwheat and rye make for interesting flavor and the salt is sel gris -the grey salt from the region that brings more mineral flavors to this bread. Goes great with meats and cheeses – $5/loaf
Spelt Levain – Spelt is an ancient grain with a nutty, slightly sweet flavor; it has gluten but it isn’t as strong as in modern wheat. This bread is made with a levain before the final dough is mixed with traditional bread flour, spelt flour, fresh milled whole spelt and rye. – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Traditional Croissants – Made with two preferments, a levain as well as “old dough” where a portion of the flour, water, salt and yeast has been fermented overnight. The final dough is then made with more flour, butter, milk and sugar, and laminated with more butter before being cut and shaped into traditional french croissants. – 2/$5
Wine of the Week: Betz Clos de Betz ’08 Washington $45 Parker 95 pts
Rooting around in the cellar for wines to pour this weekend we discovered a nearly full case of 2008 Betz Clos de Betz , and knowing how carefully Betz wines were made, this one is probably just starting to hit its stride.
We have probably mentioned in earlier posts that winery founder and long-time winemaker Bob Betz has such a deep affection for French wines that he modeled many of his blends after the style of particular French wine regions.
For example, Clos de Betz is his take on Right Bank Bordeaux, a Merlot-dominant blend with other Bordeaux varietals Cab Sauv, Cab Franc, and Petit Verdot. This contrasts with his Pere de Famille, styled after Left Bank Bordeaux blends in which Cab Sauv is the dominant grape.
Washington merlot often features an unusually weighty richness, lush fruit, and an elegant tannic structure with great aging potential (like, right now it should be just about optimal!), and this wine is a great example.
The Economics of the Heart: Humanism at the Crossroads
It’s been a rough bunch of years for virtues like ethics, kindness, humility, caring, and wisdom. A long forty years ago American politics took a sharp turn to the Right when Reagan began dismantling the New Deal. Safety nets were put in storage while the poor, the sick, the mentally ill, and the homeless were left to fend for themselves, and the money saved quickly started funneling into the bank accounts of the wealthy. The investor class became the new Feudal Lords and amassed great fortunes while multitudes in the middle class saw their real wealth and wages stagnate for an entire generation.
It became common practice over those forty years for Republican administrations to begin each legislative cycle by cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans while increasing government spending on war materials and subsidies to private industry. The results are all around us in the form of climate change, widespread poverty, and worn-out dwellings, roads, bridges, railroads, and utility grids.
Republicans have never understood the difference between economics and finance. Finance is the process of borrowing the resources of others to pay for something for you. Economics is the process of determining whether something is worth doing in the first place, not because it is or is not “profitable,” but because the overall benefits to society exceed the costs. Finance is about maximizing net monetary benefits for lenders; economics is about maximizing net social benefits for Everyone, including concern for equity among winners and losers and the health of the planet.
To digress for a moment, last week we were coming home from a dog walk when Ulee’s leash came unfastened, and with high enthusiasm he took off into the woods after a deer. His barks grew fainter as they got further away. Then I heard other dogs barking as well. Time passed and he didn’t come back. We went looking, no luck. I worried in particular that he might have gotten into a fight with a couple of mean dogs down the street (long story).
Anyway, I walked home, got the car and made a patrol of the area. No sign of him. As I got back in the car, I was suddenly hit with a sense of Hopeless Dread and burst into deep, sobbing, wailing tears. In that moment I really believed he was not going to come back, and it was deeply heartbreaking. I knew it was irrational, that most likely he would be home when I got there. And he was! But that didn’t stop me from doing the same thing then, with a big hug from Pat and a furry snuggle with Ulee.
My takeaway from that experience is that we have all been under a Lot of stress from the exhausting combination of four years of the Daily Chaos of the Tweetster, almost two years of Covid isolation and anxiety, and nearly one year (and counting) of the attack on the Capitol and the subsequent Big Lie.
Now, TODAY, as in this very day, September 30, 2021, a political battle has been joined in our Nation’s capitol for the Future of Life in our country in particular and on our fragile planet Earth in general. At this moment, the outcome rests on the whims of a couple of nominally Democratic Senators whose egos may turn them Republican at the last minute and scuttle both bills, opening the door for a New Republican Fascism from which this fragile and intricately interdependent world will never recover.
There’s a LOT at stake; may Wisdom prevail.
This week’s $5 tasting:
Betz Clos de Betz ’08 Washington $45
66% Merlot, 25% Cab Sauv, 9% Petit Verdot. Tight and precise, with sharply defined edges. Expressive nose of pain grille, graphite, Asian spices, with hints of balsamic, black currant, and blackberry; superb concentration, complexity, layers of fruit, and a lengthy finish. Parker 95 pts
Olim Bauda La Villa Barbera d’Asti ’17 Italy $14
Aromas and flavors of dark, rich red berries and currants; rich, ripe style with lots of up-front fruit and beautiful cleansing acidity.
Maryhill Viognier ’18 Washington $14
Carefully picked and slowly pressed to extract vibrant aromas of melon, pear, and apricot with traces of pineapple and grapefruit, continuing into a sensational and crisp fruit finish.
2072 Granger Way