lummi island wine tasting dec 17 ’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 wine tasting THIS WEEKEND, December 17-18.
Last tasting for Aught-21…!
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:
Italian Breakfast Bread – A delicious sweet, but not too sweet, bread. Made with bread flour eggs, yogurt, a little sugar and vanilla as well as dried cranberries golden raisins and candied lemon peel. Perfect for breakfast as toast or even better for french toast – $5/loaf
Flax Seed Currant Ciabatta – Made with a poolish that ferments some of the flour and water overnight before being mixed with the final ingredients which includes a nice mix of bread flour and fresh milled whole wheat and rye flours. Loaded up with flax seeds and dried currants for a delicious bread. This bread is mixed with a lot of water that makes for a very slack dough so it can’t be weighed out and shaped like other bread, it is just cut into pieces. A really flavorful artisan loaf – $5/piece
and pastry this week…
Cranberry, Pecan, White Chocolate Muffins – Inspired by a bar available this time of year from a well known coffee shop, that might be called something like cranberry bliss or something. Delightful muffins chock full of everything in the name, fresh cranberries, toasted pecans and white chocolate chips. – 4/$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: Looking for the Light
As 2021 comes to something of a whimpering close during this Holiday season, we depart from our usual laments to scratch the ground for any signs of Hope for the future.
COVID…
has kept us under siege for two very long years. We seniors in particular are grateful for the years of scientific research that paved the way for the rapid development and deployment of effective vaccines. Though the future might present more variants, we are all lucky ducks to have had this technology so readily available.
The good news is that while we are still threatened by the pandemic and the many vaccine deniers, we have much more freedom to move about safely than a year ago; many places are approaching “herd immunity” vaccination levels; and we have developed a robust technology to respond quickly to new variants.
The “BIG LIE...
that has been kept fueled and burning hot for over a year now by Republican leaders and their Fox co-conspirators broadcasting 24/7 that the 2020 election was stolen from the twice-impeached Donald Trump, is starting to collide with findings of the House Committee investigating those events. This week the Committee reported detailed evidence about the scope of the conspiracy to keep Trump in power, and indicated with some conviction (pun intended) that over the next few months they will provide an increasingly detailed roadmap of the attempted coup and the Trump loyalists who planned and orchestrated it.
The good news here is the strong likelihood that over the next few months the committee will be able to outline in even greater detail the timeline, participants, documents, conversations, meetings, and actions of the conspirators as they sought to overturn the results of the election.
Climate Change…
has delivered a Blockbuster Year of record-breaking numbers and intensity of forest fires, rain and flooding in some places, drought and heat waves in others; the sixth consecutive year of above-average hurricane numbers and intensities, and the seventh in a row with the first named storm occurring in May instead of June or July. And all of that has now been topped off in the last few days with the astonishingly destructive tornado disaster in the the Southeast, where even some Republicans might start believing that climate change is Real.
The small ray of light that could come from these dramatic increases in the destructive impacts of climate change is that their increasing number, magnitude, and economic costs might help make them impossible to ignore.
Sadly, all of these “hopeful signs” are predicated on the notion that when things get Bad Enough, ordinary people will start realizing the facts before their eyes over the repetitive slogans from their puppeteers. Still, during this holiday season we can all light a candle and dedicate its light to a brighter future for our planet, our human brothers and sisters, and all living things.
Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings;
Radiating kindness over the entire world
-from the Metta Sutta
This week’s $5 tasting: (since we wound up pouring distributor samples for our tasting last weekend, this weekend we will do the tasting menu we listed last week)
Charles Krug Napa Valley Chardonnay ’17 Napa $18
The cool, foggy North Bay/Carneros region delivers a nice balance of acidity and ripeness, rounded out nicely by barrel fermentation and sur lie aging, producing aromas of tropical fruit and citrus blossom with flavors of peach and pear, and a velvety texture.
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.
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.
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2072 Granger Way