lummi island wine tasting Aug 29-30 ’25

Posted at August 28, 2025

Hours this weekend:   4-6 pm Friday  & Saturday 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week’s wine tasting
 

Decoy Chardonnay ’23     California     $16
Blended from several CA central coast vineyards; aromas of sweet mandarin orange and white peach; juicy and vibrant palate of tropical fruit flavors with a hint of oak from its time in barrel.

Tenuta Sant’Antonio Monti Garbi Valpolicella Ripasso Superiore ’21        Italy      $21
Spicy and intense, with hints of crushed ash and smoky black cherries; silky texture and pure, with notes of sour wild berries and salty minerality; long, energetic, spicy finish of blackcurrant & mocha,

Idilico Tempranillo ’21         Washington          $19
Aromas of leather, forest floor, and balsamic notes wrapped around a core of red fruit, notes of fresh dried herbs, sweet spice and red currant; medium bodied with juicy mouthfeel, soft tannin, and a lingering finish.

 

Ripasso Explained

Valpolicella, the dominant red table wine of the Veneto region, is a blend of Corvina, Rondinella, and Molinara grapes. The thick-skinned corvina varietal is also central to the apassamiento process by which the elegant table/dessert wine amarone is made, beginning with 100 days of drying (raisining!) the best grapes before pressing them. After pressing, the dried grape skins remain in contact with the juice-that-becomes-amarone through fermentation.

However, because the sugars are so concentrated in the raisined grapes, the skins still contain plenty of sugar and flavor, and can be used several more times. The amarone is left to age in barrels for several years before bottling, and the residual must is used several more times to make ripasso (“passed through again”), a delicious wine somewhere between valpolicella and amarone in its weight, complexity, and nuance. Under the rules of the region, wineries may only make up to twice as much ripasso as they do amarone in a given harvest. 

 

Economics of the Heart: The Looming Question of Lawful Orders

Everyone serving in a branch of the United States military is legally subject to the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice), which defines legal rights and responsibilities of service members under various circumstances. While most of it is quite straightforward, the current political circumstances of our country is creating a growing and possibly existential dilemma. 

A central tenet of the UCMJ is that everyone must follow all “lawful orders,” and must NOT follow (or give) “unlawful orders.” The first priority in such a rule is that commanders take that responsibility seriously. 

In recent weeks the Tweetster’s so-called “administration,” under the direction of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 war plan, tested a declaration of martial law and moving in National Guard troops first to LA, and now to DC, going so far as to push DC authorities aside completely under transparently illegal circumstances and creating chaos. 

There are more violations of the UCMJ in these behaviors than can be counted. So logically that means that: 1) few if any of the people getting those orders are too threatened to refuse them; 2) a lot of people who know the orders are illegal are giving them anyway; and 3) the new Civil War has officially begun and we “have to fight like hell or we won’t have a country any more.” 

So we fight!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wine Tasting

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.

Comments are closed.