Lummi Island Wine Tasting April 19 ’14
Attention Shoppers! Help Island Library just by Shopping…!
Community Food Co op: Friends of Island Library (FOIL) has been awarded a Community Shopping Day at the Food Co op. Our day is this Saturday, April 19th! FOIL representatives will be at both stores from 1:00-4:00 PM to cheer you on. The Co op will donate 2% of the total sales for that day to FOIL. So come one, come all to either the downtown Co op (1220 N. Forest St.) or the Cordata Co op ( 315 Westerly Rd.) on April 19th,! Stock up and shop till you drop! It’s for a worthy Cause!
smile.amazon.com: Next time you are making an online purchase from Amazon, instead of going to “amazon.com,” go instead to “smile.amazon.com”. In the Your Account drop-down, select “Choose your charity,” and fill in “Friends of the Island Library.” A number of choices will be displayed, and probably our (Lummi Island) library will be first, but read carefully to be sure. Make your selection and follow a few more simple instructions, and you are signed up! Future purchases through “smile.amazon.com” will continue to benefit the library!
Disclaimer: Artisan Wine Gallery does not encourage wasteful consumption (duh, any non-wine-related products and services!), especially from gargantuan, worker-exploiting outfits like Amazon.com. But if you are going to buy from them anyway, please be sure to take that little cut for our sweet Library, which needs all the help it can get!)
Domaine Rouge-Bleu
On our last trip to France we visited Jean-Marc Espinasse at Rouge-Bleu, in the southern Rhone area west of Cairanne and north of Orange. We got terribly lost on the way and were very late arriving, but Jean-Marc was the perfect host, tasting us through his palette of wines very late on a fall afternoon. His wife, Kristin, it turns out, is from Bellevue, and the suggestion to go there came from a conversation with acclaimed Washington winemaker Bob Betz (Betz Family Winery in Woodinville). The setting, the wines, and the broad, flat vista of the vineyards were all on the Rustic side, the sorts of wines I like to explore but which may be a bit challenging to Western palates.
After our return from France, I did expend some effort trying to connect Jean-Marc with a Washington distributor, to no avail. So it was with some pleasure that I found his wine in a recent catalog, and we ordered a few bottles for you to try. It also seems that in the past year the winery has been sold to a young couple (Caroline and Thomas), and Jean-Marc (toujours l’entrepreneur) has gone ( je ne sais pas ou)…! Nevertheless, we are pouring for your pleasure this weekend the 2011 Rouge-Bleu Mistral, a blend of very old-vine grenache with some syrah and bits of mourvedre and roussanne, all aged in cement tanks with the skins. Which is to say, if you like Rustic, you will like this wine!
Wine Club Dudes Dues Due
In case you haven’t noticed, it has been 2014-ing out for several months now. If we had been smarter when we launched our Wine Club last year, we would have devised a calendar-year system so that all memberships would become due at the same time, like, say, January 1. Unfortunately, we didn’t do that. In retrospect, getting the Wine Club off the ground at all was a major Accomplishment. We are grateful to those of you who have joined and become Supporters, and we hope that you will choose to renew your memberships.
The main perk for membership is, of course, the $5 member discount on tasting fees, which can save you a bundle…I mean, really, the more you taste the more you save! In addition, last year we also offered discounts based on total wine purchases since joining, with white card, pink card, red card, etc. However, as mentioned recently, for 2014 we are doing away with these cards and embarking on a simplified set of purchase benefits for the Wine Club, to wit:
– 8.6% discount on any mixed-case purchase (we pay sales tax!)
– 5% discount on any 6-bottle purchase
– 15% discount on any special-order case
In addition we would still like to reward members who choose to bring us more of their wine business, as we did last year with the different expenditure-based cards. So 2013 members will be able to choose either the discount they have earned through cumulative purchases (card level) or the everyday bulk discounts above, whichever works better. All of this basically boils down to: 2013 members may choose whichever set of rules works better for them!
This Week’s Tasting
Mt. Baker Siegierrebe ’11 Washington $14
This early ripening cross of Gewürztraminer and Madeleine Angevine grows well here in Western Washington. The wine is light, bright, crisp, and refreshing, perfect with a fresh summer salad.
Andrew Murray Elleven Pinot Noir ’12 California $16
A first picking of five pinot noir clones planted in 2009, already showing medium body, soft texture, and Central Coast pedigree…we managed to get the last case for this vintage, check it out!
For a Song “The Score” Merlot ’11 Washington $11
Lush and concentrated, with big New World notes of dark plum, blackberry, and cherry, and earthy Old World notes of coffee, dark chocolate, and leather.
Poderi Elia Barbera d’Asti ‘11 Italy $14
Balanced, soft, and rich, with freshly pressed cranberries on the nose, and lush palate of pomegranate, bright acidity, and soft tannins that beg for pairing with a savory meal.
Rouge Bleu Mistral ’11 France $23
Bold and toasty, with espresso and baker’s chocolate notes up front, followed by gutsy blackberry cobbler and blueberry paste flavors, all with a hearty Old World feel through the finish that lends rustic character.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
2072 Granger Way