lummi island wine tasting december 22 ’17

Posted at December 22, 2017

(note: some photos will enlarge when clicked)

Christmas Breads

Cranberry Walnut Braid – A yeast bread enriched with buttermilk, eggs, sugar, butter and lemon. Then stuffed full of dried cranberries and toasted walnuts. This bread has a soft, tender crumb and is bursting with flavor, a great addition to your Christmas table -or Christmas morning breakfast as french toast! – $5/loaf

Pain aux Noix- In France all nuts are referred to as Noix, in this case hazelnuts. This is a delicious bread made with bread flour and fresh milled white whole wheat, milk and butter are added for a tender crumb and some honey for sweetness. Then it is loaded up with toasted hazelnuts. It is a traditional celebratory bread -$5/loaf

For pastry this week:

Gibassiers – A traditional french pastry that incorporates the flavors from the southern France region. Made with a delicious sweet dough full of milk, butter, eggs and olive oil. The addition of orange flower water, candied orange peel and anise seed bring great flavor to these pastries. After baking they are brushed with melted butter and sprinkled with more sugar. Ooh La La a delightful pastry with your morning coffee or tea. – 2/$5

 

Holiday Wine Shop Schedule

We wish all of you a Wonderful Christmas Holiday, and look forward to seeing you New Year’s weekend!

12th annual East Coast New Year’s Eve Party!

As the Fortunate Few well know, our annual “East Coast New Year’s Eve Party” is a Hallowed Tradition. From 7-9pm on New Year’s Eve we provide the wine, you bring Something Delicious to share, and when the ball drops in Times Square three hours away, we all hoist our glasses and toast the New Year! The Young at Heart move on to their next party, and we Old Timers can get to bed at a decent hour! We welcome this annual opportunity to Thank all of you for your support this year, and to toast ahead to even more fun in aught-eighteen. Arrrr, lads and lassies, ye best mark yer calendars now ‘n’ start plannin’ yer Finger Foods!

Important Note! Speaking of Finger Food, we will again this year have a Secret Operative sampling the dishes and Assigning Points! Yummiest Dish wins a $25 credit, and Yummiest-Looking Dish wins a $15-dollar credit! Let’s see if Competition really does improve Quality!

 

Wine Club News

These days most of you are Wine Club members, and already buy our wines tax-free (8.7% discount over our Usual Low Prices!), as well as paying only $5 for our five-wine tasting flight (a $20-$30 value in your average restaurant), compared to $10 for non-members. This is a Reminder that all Wine Club memberships expire at the end of each calendar year! In order to keep enjoying Membership Savings through 2018 you must renew your membership. Also, the rising costs of wine demand that in order to continue our Generous Pours, we are raising the wine club membership fee for 2018 from $35 to $50 to close the Gap a bit on our expenses.

The Good News is that to make all of this more Palatable, if you are a current wine club member and buy any mixed case of wine before December 31, you can renew your membership for 2018 for the old rate of $35. Think about it! And while you’re at it, Consider that we have just Replenished our Stock of Theo’s Chocolate, including delicious bars, Almond Butter Cups, and Chocolate Coconut Clusters!

 

Mar a Lago Update: Trickle-Down 4.0

When it comes right down to it, Republicans have only ever had Three Goals: Making the Rich richer; Convincing Themselves that Being Rich is their Birthright; and Convincing the Masses that They are in Danger and Only Republicans can Save Them. But since most people are Not rich, the challenge has always been about selling Point #3 while Dissembling about Points #1 and #2. Back in the 50’s there was a weekly TV series called “Racket Squad,” about Con Men (and Women) who could “Pat you on the Back with one hand while Picking your Pocket with the other” (as the old narrative explained before each episode).

So this week after Years in the Making, Republikaners managed to pass the latest version of the same Trickle-Down, Supply-Side (“Build it in the 3rd World, they will Buy it in America”), Economics that didn’t work for Reagan, didn’t work for Bushes I or II, and will not work now.

Eight years ago these same policies led to what Bush Treasury Secretary Ben Bernanke recently called “the worst financial crisis in global history,” which unfolded on his watch under W, who handed it all off to Obama on his first day in office. I mean, really, can you Imagine stepping into That? As you all recall, unemployment went above 10%, much higher for some communities. Peoples’ savings disappeared by the Trillions. Banks threw millions of people out of their homes to pad their Bottom Lines. The financial industry caused the crisis and then found ways to Skim Profit and Trickle Down Catastrophic Losses to Ordinary People. Bernanke ( then in the Obama Cabinet)  followed the Keynesian wisdom to use government spending and tax cuts to stimulate demand for products and services, which in turn increased the demand for investment and labor. Given the size of the Hole the entire world economy was in, those policies worked slowly but effectively.

However, those are NOT the fiscal policies to use when the economy is already running at close to the nearly full employment we have crawled back to over the last 8 years. In our current situation, most economists predict that stimulating demand with tax cuts to the middle class will only push prices up, that cutting taxes will only increase deficits, and that cutting taxes for corporations will translate only into higher dividends for stockholders and higher executive salaries, not Bold New Investments in American Infrastructure. Time will tell.

 

This week’s wine tasting

Ruffino Prosecco     Italy    $13
Crisp, clean and delicate with fine bubbles; fragrant and intensely fruity with clean notes of apples, pears and citrus with hints of hawthorn, wisteria and elder.  Pleasant aftertaste of apples and peaches.

Ruffino Rose Prosecco     Italy    $13
Elegant and stylish Italian sparkling wine made primarily from the Glera grape, blended with Pinot Noir. The Glera grape gives the wine structure and body, and the Pinot Noir provides the wine with a beautiful rose hue. Its extra-dry style makes it easy to enjoy.

Corte Gordoni La Fontane Bardolino ’12    Italy  $14
60% Corvina for structure, weight and a sour-cherry aroma; 30% Rondinella for fresh, herb flavor in a polished, beautifully scented and silky wine with pure red-berry flavors and a mildly spicy finish.

Castano Solanera Vinas Viejas ’13    Spain   92pts   $14
Monastrell, Cab, Grenache from high-elevation limestone soils; dense purple color, a big sweet kiss of blueberry and blackberry fruit mixed with crushed chalk, full-bodied mouthfeel, beautiful purity, density and richness with lavish fruit.

Chateau la Croisille ‘Silice’ Malbec ”15    France   $19
Plots located on the Luzech limestone plateau, more precisely on terroirs made of iron-rich siliceous red clays, aged one year in neutral oak, yielding a wine that is both rustic and polished.

Wine Tasting

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