lummi island wine tasting dec 10 ’21
Current Covid Protocols
Tastings this weekend will be both Friday and Saturday from 4-6 pm, with attendance subject to our ongoing Covid requests:
— You must have completed a full Covid vaccination sequence to participate;
— We ask all guests to maintain mindful social distance from people outside your regular “neighborhood pods.”
Holiday Schedule
Please note we will be closed for both Christmas weekend (Dec 24-25), and New Year’s weekend (Dec 31-Jan 1).
However, we will be OPEN as usual for Friday Bread Pickup and Fri-Sat wine tasting THIS WEEKEND, December 10-11, and NEXT WEEKEND, December 17-18.
Friday Bread This Week
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. To get on the bread order mailing list, click on the Contact Us link at the top of the page and fill out the form.
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.
This week’s deliveries:
Poolish Ale Bread – The preferment here is a poolish, made with bread flour, a bit of yeast and a nice ale for the liquid and fermented overnight. Mixed the next day with bread flour and fresh milled whole wheat. This makes a great all around bread with a nice crisp crust – $5/loaf
Buckwheat Walnut & Honey – A flavorful artisan bread also made with a poolish, fresh milled buckwheat and bread flour. Buckwheat is actually a seed (not a grain) and closer in the plant family to rhubarb and sorrel than to wheat and contains no gluten (note that this bread does include some wheat flour). Buckwheat has an earthy flavor that in this bread is balanced with a little honey. Some toasted walnuts add a nice crunch. This bread goes well with meats and cheeses – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Rum Raisin Brioche: A delicious brioche dough full of eggs, butter and sugar. Filled with golden raisins and chunks of almond paste and (wait there’s more!) topped with a chocolate glaze before baking.- 2/$5
Wine of the Week: Greywacke Pinot Noir ’16 New Zealand $32
Most simply, greywacke is a type of sandstone with a lot of rock grain and fragments in it, kind of a lumpy batter that set up before it was completely stirred. It is believed to have formed by mudslides along a continental shelf. Greywacke is made up of dull-colored sandy rocks that are mostly grey, brown, yellow, or black which can occur in thick or thin beds, and which bear some similarity to local formations of “Chuckanut sandstone” that we see on our own shores here on Lummi Island and around the San Juan Islands.
Last year we learned that many of the formations at the Aiston Preserve (recently acquired for restoration and preservation by the Lummi Island Heritage Trust) and much of the southern half of Lummi Island contain significant deposits of greywacke. These formations are about 150 million years old, and overlay basalt and chert from an even more ancient sea floor.
Greywacke is also a major part of the geological structure of New Zealand, and just a couple of years ago we learned there is a NZ winery of the same name. We have been stocking their sauvignon blanc and pinot noir for a couple of years now, and so far it has been universally satisfying. The rocky soil gives the wines a complex minerality with aromas and flavors of dark fruit and nuances of cedar, earth, and smoke.
Winemaker Kevin Judd was the longtime winemaker at the consistently highly regarded Cloudy Bay winery before starting his own winery at Greywacke in 2008. It’s good! (read more)
The Economics of the Heart: Media, Politics, and Mindfulness
In the Fall of 2017, 60 Minutes ran a special edition hosted by Oprah Winfrey, in which 14 Michigan voters came together to meet and talk about their approval/disapproval of the Trump administration. Half were pro-Trump, and half were anti-Trump. The ensuing discussion revealed deeply embedded beliefs and a general unwillingness for those on either side to budge even an inch from their entrenched positions.
Six months later, Oprah repeated the event with the same people. Surprisingly, the groups had met on their own in several venues between the meetings. Somehow, although they did not change their minds about pro/anti-Trumpiness, they developed a certain rapport and acceptance. But while transcripts of the discussion show the development of enough respect to listen to opposing views, finding common ground remained more elusive.
In June of 2018, Amanda Ripley, a journalist and fellow at the Emerson Collective, wrote a fascinating piece about the need for a different kind of journalism in today’s highly polarized environment. Her analysis explores in a compelling way how journalists can broaden conversations in ways that build inclusion and avoid polarization. She makes a strong case that an important key is that “while humans share a tendency to simplify and demonize, we also share a desire for understanding.”
Therefore, she argues, the direction of more effective communication is to explore issues and people’s feelings about them more deeply, and she identifies five guidelines journalists could use with people when writing stories. As I read them, my decades of training and practice in Hakomi, Feldenkrais, Tai chi, and Zen started lighting up all kinds of connections: the element that all five have in common is quite simple: invite people to explore their viewpoints mindfully!
The easiest way to think about this is to imagine ordinary consciousness as the surface of an ocean. It’s a very busy place, with a Lot of Noise from wind, waves, and currents. The simplest way to gain insight into deeper layers of our own consciousness is to close our eyes and shift our focus away from thinking mind and focus on our physical and emotional experiences in the present moment.
At the conscious level we can espouse particular beliefs with great fervor. At the unconscious level there is a long personal story about how each belief came into being– usually in childhood as a defense against being hurt…again. Like when a rabbit knows you see it and it freezes, following its deep-wired internal imperative: Don’t Look Like Something to Eat!”
The Big Takeaway here is that our Media Universe has become Seriously Toxic. Like 2001’s Supercomputer Hal 9000, our media and internet feedback mechanisms are Stuck and must be unplugged and reprogrammed. Amanda Ripley’s article is recommended to read and share widely if we (including journalists!) are to wake up from the collective trance which is threatening everything we all hold most dear.
“Stop, Dave…my Mind is going… my Mind is going… I can feel it… I can feel it…”
This week’s $5 tasting:
Capcanes Mas Donis Old Vines ‘18 Spain $14
Velvety mouthfeel and texture; wild red and black berry flavors, with cherry, spices and herbs; medium to full-bodied with soft and velvet tannins and nicely refreshing finish.
Charles Krug Napa Valley Chardonnay ’17 Napa $18
The cool, foggy North Bay/Carneros region delivers a nice balance of acidity and ripeness, evoked nicely by barrel fermentation and sur lie aging, producing aromas of tropical fruit and citrus blossom with flavors of peach and pear.
Greywacke Pinot Noir ’16 New Zealand $32
Delicious aromas of juicy blackberries, blueberries and strawberry jam, with suggestions of black olives, cedar and a hint of lavender. Finely structured palate shows red and black fruit with earthy, smoky nuances.
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