Lummi Island Wine Tasting December 3 ’11

Posted at December 1, 2011

It is December 1 as I write this. I have been hearing on the radio today (weekly trip to town!) about the Bazillions of dollars in sales for Black Friday, apparently the day of the year that makes Americans the King and Queen of Shoppers, the Sine Qua Non of Shoppers, the Biggest buying extravaganza of the year. Somehow I can picture Stephen Colbert leading the chant: “We’re Number One, We’re Number One, We’re Number One…!

People that track such things, however, are very concerned that BF was not THE big day…rather THAT was the Sunday BEFORE Thanksgiving. (BF was a measly $11.2 billion…hardly worth getting out of bed for). And even though Black Weekend was disappointing, it was still a percent or two bigger than Last Year, so you’d think they’d be happy. But they’re not, you know. It’s like the famous quotation from Charles de Gaulle: Comment voulez-vous gouverner un pays qui a deux cent quarante-six variétés de fromage?, which, roughly translated, means: “How can anyone govern a country which has two hundred and forty-six varieties of cheese?”

You can imagine the one-tenth of one percent sitting around with wine (Really Good Wine, of course, because.after all, they can afford the best) and cigars, and musing about the whimsical nature of the Consumer Nation they have created and Rule, the same way that ranchers complain when cattle or sheep don’t happen to like the latest Monsanto-engineered pseudo-food. “Yeess,” one would say with some foreign accent, “Bloody inconvenient, eh? And after all we’ve done for them…makes you wonder why we bother…!” Except of course they are not English, they are multinational, which basically means, as “W” was fond of saying, “Who cares what you think?”

Of course, American Culture (I use the word loosely) being what it is, like any great River, there is always a counter-current to everything, and yes, that means a counter-current to every counter-current. So of course Black Friday is also Buy Nothing Day, which has been renamed as (I am not making this up!) #OCCUPYXMAS. And in case you haven’t been paying attention, the “occupy” label is now attached to a wide range of activities reminiscent of a long ago movie featuring the line “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore!” Make of all of that what you will…but these are interesting times.

HOLIDAYS    HOLIDAYS     HOLIDAYS     HOLIDAYS    HOLIDAYS     HOLIDAYS

We, of course, like everyone else, have our own “Shameless Commerce Division,” as Click and Clack call it, so of course we have our own concerns about sales. Having been at this for a number of years, however, we know that December marks the beginning of our slow season, as some people head south, others visit family, others just curl up by the fire until the Groundhog says it’s safe to come out again. So stop by when you can, enjoy the coming holiday season, and remember that during December we will be open our usual hours on Fridays from 4-7pm and Saturdays from 2-6, including Christmas Eve.

However, we will NOT be open usual hours on New Year’s Eve. Rather, we will be open for our Seventh Annual East Coast New Year’s Eve party from 7-9. We will provide the wine, and guests are invited to bring finger food to share. And when the ball drops in Times Square (9pm our time) we celebrate the New Year! (and you young folks can go on to your next party while those so inclined can go home and call it a day, month, year…!)

TRUFFLES    TRUFFLES     TRUFFLES     TRUFFLES     TRUFFLES
For Christmas there will be four flavors of Pat and Janice’s famous truffles (the chocolate kind, not the fungus kind—someone last weekend was confused), packaged in boxes of four for $5. Flavors will include four old favorites, all made by hand from exquisite French chocolate :

 

    

Last week we sold our only two cases of the just-arrived Honoro Vera garnacha, which was, as you can guess, delicious. Unfortunately, the distributor sold out, no more till January (aaarrrggghhh!) . We were able to score some of the Honoro Vera Monastrell, however, and I am tasting it as I write. It is maybe not the silky knockout the garnacha was, but for $9 it still over-delivers in a big way! I only have a few bottles of our last wine for this week’s tasting, the Domaine Maxime Magnon”Rozeta” ‘ 09 which Parker gave 93 points and an absolutely mouth-watering review (see below). Come on in and try it, and I will tell you an interesting story about it…!

This week’s tasting:

Chateau L’Ermitage 09     France    $9
It’s Back! Rousanne, grenache, and viognier blend; light gold in color with aromas of peach, flowers, and honey; the Grenache provides the richness and the Roussanne the balancing acidity. Delicious!

 Honoro Vera Monastrell   ’09       Spain      $9
Tank aged 100% Monastrell. Its pleasing nose reveals notes of underbrush, mineral, and blueberry leading to a savory, spicy, nicely balanced medium-bodied wine.

St. Cosme Cotes du Rhone  ’10     France       90pts     $14
Has lush, silky-textured layers of dark plum, anise and crushed blackberry fruit, woven with black tea and graphite notes through the finish. Impresses with its length and depth.

Domaine Maxime Magnon”Rozeta” ‘ 09    France     93 pts    $26
60% Carignan, with the rest split about equally between Grenache and Cinsault. Black raspberry in fresh and distilled form is beautifully complimented by heliotrope and peony perfume that persist inner-mouth with luscious refreshment and uncanny levity. Smoky black tea notes on the nose have their counterpart in invigoratingly nippy, tea-like tanninity, while toasted hickory, chalk, and saliva-inducing salinity add to the irresistible intrigue of a lingering finish. The almost explosively intense, dizzyingly-dynamic aromatic interplay of flowers, fruits, and sea breeze left in the empty glass is in itself worth the modest price of admission to this garden of delight and outstanding value.

 

Wine Tasting

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.

Comments are closed.