lummi island wine tasting august 6 ’21
Covid Notes: The Delta Dilemma
Just a week ago it became clear that the Corona virus Delta variant was on a rampage around the world. It is far more contagious than previous variants, such that infected people on average infect five others instead of one or two.
Even more worrisome, recent data confirmed that Delta can infect even vaccinated people, often with very mild symptoms or in many cases none at all. That has created a situation much like the beginning of Covid, when we had to assume that anyone outside our immediate pods was a potential threat.
Weighing the various risks, we will be open this weekend as usual, but with several requirements for participation in our wine tasting: You must have:
- completed a Covid vaccine sequence at least a month ago; AND
- had little or no unmasked contact with off-island groups in the past week.
Tasting will also be available outside, with masks and prudent social distancing requested.
Friday Bread for 8/6/21
Rosemary Olive Oil – made with bread flour and freshly milled white whole wheat for additional flavor and texture. Fresh rosemary from the garden and olive oil to make for a nice tender crumb and a nice crisp crust. A great all around bread – $5/loaf
Multi Grain – Uses an overnight preferment before mixing the final dough. which is then mixed with bread flour and fresh milled whole wheat, rye, along with polenta cornmeal, flax, sunflower and sesame seeds for a nice bit of crunch and extra flavor. A great all around bread – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Bear Claws! – Made with a Danish pastry dough rich in cream, eggs, sugar and butter. The dough is rolled out and spread with almond paste, powdered sugar, egg whites and just a bit of cinnamon to round out the flavor. Then, because bears love honey, topped with a honey glaze after baking! – 2/$5
Wine of the Week: Marchetti Verdicchio di Castelli di Jesi Classico ’19 Italy $14
The Marche wine region reaches from the mountainous spine of Italy to the Adriatic. This weekend’s low yield Verdicchio is a hallmark of the varietal, with refreshing citrus fruits, playful acidity, and complex minerality. Made only with juice from a gentle half-press, it is precise and engaging.
Established in 1968 as a DOC of 18 hilly communes, the Verdicchio Classico, or Castelli di Jesi, region, is located some 35 kilometers inland from Ancona, an unusual wine region near the Adriatic coast where red grapes are grown close to the sea, and white grapes prefer to be slightly inland. The distinction of being “Classico” is a recognition that “this is what wine from this grape is meant to taste like.”
Wine history of the region dates back to the Romans and before, with some clay artifacts such as amphorae dating the region’s wine production back to the Iron Age. These days, the verdicchios from the region have developed a consistent quality and tasting profile that sets them apart.
Verdicchio/ Malvasia blend using only free-run juice; pale straw color with green overtones; intense bouquet of citrus, lemon zest, and floral notes,with complex fruity character, and crisp, well-balanced palate.
Economics of the Heart: Tragedy of the Commons Revisited
A recent opinion piece in the New York Times by Farhad Manjoo caught our attention while browsing headline this week. Curiously, it also drew the attention of several amigos in a long-standing weekly discussion group. Like many of us right now, Manjou is worrying about whether human beings have the capacity to collaborate with each other in a profound enough way to reverse the existential damage we have done and continue to do that are rapidly destroying the ability of our Dear Planet Earth — our only Refuge– to support Life. At present the clearest path has bookies across the planet laying odds that we are all Toast, and it is too late to do anything about it.
Our one quibble with Manjoo is his dismissal of the importance of Garrett Hardin’s essay, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” published in the journal Science in1968. His basic premise has become the defining problem of common property resources in general: that individuals acting in reasonable self-interest will put more and more animals on common land until it can no longer sustain any.
This is not just a story of a few animals in a hypothetical situation. This is a general postulate about any situation where the exploitation of a resource has no functioning rationing system. When any resource is owned in common, it is in fact owned by no one, and the Rule of Capture applies; whoever gets it first “wins.” Unfortunately, it is always a Pyrrhic victory, because each user has the incentive to use up as much of the resource as possible as quickly as possible, when all would be better off conserving the resource by setting harvest limits and establishing a fair system for allocating exploitation shares.
Examples are legion, including:
- in fisheries, lack of regulation (e.g., licensing) leads to over-capitalization (too much gear chasing too few fish) and resource depletion;
- in the Rain Forest, clearing and burning of ancient trees destroy unique and precious habitat and their species for a few more acres of marginal farm or grazing land;
- In irrigation, arcane historic rules for allocation of water rights can preserve inefficient uses of scarce water resources that have many more valuable applications;
- Any human couple can reproduce indiscriminately without concern for the cost imposed on others and on the planet by the demand for resources to feed, clothe, and maintain an additional human being;
- Powerful individuals, corporations, and armies of highly paid lobbyists at all levels distort resource allocation decisions to maximize private benefits in ways that impose enormous costs on society as a whole.
Our discomfort with Manjoo’s article is that he poo-poos the Big Wisdom in Hardin’s metaphorical article on the innate human tendency to deplete any commonly owned resource to extinction. At present, everything we see around us confirms that we humans are destroying the ability of our planet to support life. No one’s God, or Prophet, or Belief, or Political Orientation, or other Rationalization of Entitlement is going to save us. Our only hope is to establish effective and mutually-agreed-upon rationing systems that provide for all.
And our point of agreement with Manjoo is, well, there is not a lot of evidence that Seven Billion humans are going to agree on a mutually beneficial global rationing system soon enough to save our Planet.
This week’s $5 tasting:
Adorada “Eau de California” Rosé ’16 California $14
Brilliant coral color with aromas of strawberries, red grapefruit, rose petal, and jasmine; palate of strawberry, orange zest and a touch of white pepper spice with bright acidity to balance the fruity creaminess. And all presented in a Very Fashionable Package!
Marchetti Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico ’19 Italy $14
Verdicchio/ Malvasia blend using only free-run juice; pale straw color with green overtones; intense bouquet of citrus, lemon zest, and floral notes,with complex fruity character, and crisp, well-balanced palate.
La Spinetta IL Nero di Casanova Sangiovese ’15 Italy $20
Intense ruby red color. Aromas of wild cherry, black currant spicy mint, and sweet plum, and a fruity, chewy, cherry palate with silky tannins and elegant richness.
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