lummi island wine tasting august 18 ’17

Posted at August 17, 2017

(note: some photos will enlarge when clicked)

Bread this week

Pain au Levain – Made with a nice mix of bread flour and freshly milled whole wheat and rye flours. After building the sourdough and mixing the final dough it gets a long cool overnight ferment in the refrigerator. This really allows the flavor to develop in this bread. A great all around bread – $5/loaf

Semolina w/ Fennel & Raisins – Also 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. Judy A. says this is her favorite! These flavors go really well with meats and cheese, but it also makes pretty darn good toast – $5/loaf

And for pastry this week:

Brioche au Chocolate – A rich pastry dough made with plenty of butter, eggs and sugar, rolled out and spread with pastry cream before sprinkling with dark chocolate. The dough is folded over all that delicious filling and cut into individual pieces. 2/$5

 

This Weekend’s Schedule: Open Friday, Closed Saturday

The wine shop will be open as usual on Friday this week, and we look forward to seeing all of you for wine tasting and Bread Pickup.

But on Saturday we are heading South in our little trailer hoping to see the Total Eclipse of the Sun. We are camping along the Columbia at Memaloose State Park in Oregon along the Columbia near the Dalles Sunday night. Early Monday morning we hope to make it south about fifty miles into the Path of Totality (not to be confused with Current Politics). But Everyone and Family will be trying to do the Same Thing. And though there is a kind of Futility to the Entire Effort, it is a Rare Thing, so we make the effort.

Bottom Line: Wine shop CLOSED on Saturday, August 19…Make a Note of It!

 

Kalfu

For some while we have been exploring carmenere, the Chilean grape varietal that for 100 years was thought to be a clone of merlot.  Thirty years ago, modern genetic testing identified it as carmenere, a Bordeaux varietal thought extinct since the phylloxera epidemic that devastated French vineyards in the late 19th century.

One of those carmeneres was from a producer called Ventisquero, about which we knew nothing except it was in Chile. I tried to order more, but that was in the market chaos here in Washington State after the Costco Referendum (lobbied to the extent of about $20 million in, you know, the interests of “competition”) did away with State Liquor Stores and did away with the three-tiered pricing system that had endured since the end of Prohibition. Under the Old Rules all wholesale buyer paid the same price to producers and distributors for every product. Under the New Rules, volume discounts were allowed for volume buyers. Like Costco, Bevmo, and their Ilk. In the Old Days we had Antitrust Laws to level the playing field in most industries. No more. But we digress.

We received our semi-annual shipment of Italian (mostly) wines from Small Vineyards a couple of weeks ago, and have been pouring a few of them at our weekend tastings since then. One of those was a Chilean cabernet sauvignon from Ramirana, which made most of you Smile, always a good sign. It turns out that Ramirana is a sub-label of Ventisquero. This weekend (see above) we are pouring a Chilean pinot noir labeled Kalfu, which turns out to be Another label for Ventisquero, referring to a region on the coast, more or less due west from Santiago, and at about the same latitude as Mendoza, the prime vinicultural region of Argentina on the other side of the Andes. It’s a cool climate for Chile, not unlike the California coast where pinot noir thrives. Mmm, looking forward to trying it again…will I still like it??!

 

This week’s wine tasting

Lumos Pinot Gris  Rudolfo Vineyard ’15      Oregon   $18
Clear light golden straw color. Lively and complex aromas of lemon, green apple, nectarine. A vibrant, dry yet-fruity body and a tingling, breezy, nicely balanced nut-skin finish.

Chat. Campuget Rosé ’16 France  $12
Incisive red berry and citrus fruit scents pick up a sexy floral nuance as the wine opens up. Fresh, focused and lithe on the palate, offering nervy strawberry and orange zest flavors and a subtle honeysuckle flourish.

Kalfu Kuda Pinot Noir ’14    Chile   $15
Red currant and strawberry aromas and flavors, with hints of dried rose and white pepper. Clean, focused and juicy, with a refreshingly bitter edge of blood orange. Finishes on a subtly sweet note, showing good persistence and no obvious tannins.

Lar de Maia 5°  ’13     Spain   $15
Tempranillo, Garnacha and Syrah; mouth-filling notes of concentrated fruit leather with lingering notes of cherry and pomegranate; lively and fruity with hints of vanilla, coconut and licorice.

Antonio Sanguineti Nessun Dorma Toscana ’15    Italy    $16
Super-Tuscan blend of sangiovese, cab, and merlot, with notes of black currant and cherry, followed by spicy chocolate. Rich and spicy on the palate, the red fruit comes on strong in the middle, with chocolate rounding out the finish.

 

 

Wine Tasting

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