lummi island wine tasting feb 21 ’20

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Friday Breads This Week

Pain au Levain – Made with a nice mix of bread flour and freshly milled whole wheat and rye flours. After building the sourdough and mixing the final dough it gets a long cool overnight ferment in the refrigerator. This really allows the flavor to develop in this bread. A great all around bread – $5/loaf

Semolina Levain – Semolina is made from durum wheat, which is a hard wheat and often used in pasta. The flour has a lovely golden color that comes through in the bread. This bread is made Using a sourdough starter to mix a levain that ferments overnight before mixing the final dough with bread flour, semolina and some fresh milled whole wheat. A little butter is added for a soft crumb. Makes great toast – $5/loaf

and pastry this week…

Individual Cinnamon Rolls – Made with a rich sweet roll dough that is full of eggs, butter and sugar. The dough is rolled out, spread with pastry cream and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. Then rolled up and sliced into individual baking forms for baking. And boy are they delicious!! – 2/$5.

(breads must be pre-ordered by Wednesday for pickup here at the wine shop at our Friday wine tasting, 4-6pm. Planning a visit to the Island? Email us to get on the mailing list!)

 

Climageddon Outlook: Thwaites Glacier

Last night PBS included a very alarming report on the  Thwaites glacier in Antarctica melting and sliding into the sea much more rapidly than global warming models have been predicting. Thwaites is about the size of Florida and is partly floating and partly on land. In the last few years large chunks of the floating ice have broken off as icebergs that eventually melt into the ocean. (see video, left)

When floating ice melts, sea level does not rise. However, as the report points out, the structure and location of the Thwaites glacier is partly floating and partly on land. This recent study confirms the fear that the temperature of the seawater under the glacier is now several degrees above freezing and will continue to erode the glacier from underneath, causing giant icebergs to break off into the sea to melt, as shown in the video at left.

The melting of the shelf ice would raise sea level by about two feet worldwide, and, like a broken dam, would open a pathway for the entire West Antarctic ice sheet to start sliding into the ocean. We have known for some time that increasing global temperatures would accelerate the melting of ice in polar regions (and they have). The melting of floating sea ice will not increase sea level, but it does reduce the reflectivity of the polar regions and further acceleratea global warming. But the melting of the land-borne glaciers, particularly in Greenland and Antarctica, will cause sea level to rise as well.

The melting of Thwaites will raise global sea level by about two feet. The melting of all of it would raise sea level by about ten feet. Scientists are uncertain how fast these things will happen. But the recent confirmation of above-freezing seawater below Thwaites strongly implies they are happening faster than we imagined.

 

Mar a Lago Update: Holy Smoke-Filled Room, Batman!

Well. Last night we once again battled the complexity of watching the Debate online, always a challenge for those of us without TV Cable subscriptions. It takes a while to find the right page, and even then it required constant rebooting.

It looked a lot less like a serious Candidates’ Debate than an adolescent and unruly game show. The candidates were often all talking at once while the moderators looked more and more like first grade teachers who had completely lost control of the class. All it lacked was actual hair-pulling and snappy back and forth banter like: “Oh, yeah?..Yeah!”   “Oh, yeah?..Yeah!”

And you keep reminding yourself OMG these people all want to be President! No, no, not of their High School Class…of the Country!

In that sense it was not particularly different from the Republican debates in 2016, with 17 candidates that dwindled to three by mid-March: Tweetster, Kasich, and Cruz. By May 3 the Tweetster had won a plurality of delegates and became the Republican candidate. We couldn’t believe it then. We still don’t believe it. And then of course, it got Much Worse in November. (though of course Cruz would have presented his own kind of existential disaster…but we digress…)

Which takes us back to the Dilemma of the Democratic voter here in 2020: we don’t feel free to vote for the candidate we personally prefer! No, we feel an Existential Fear that the “wrong candidate” will get the nomination, the Tweetster will get another term, and Life on Earth will be Doomed. So there is, you know, reason to feel some pressure to get this right.

Meanwhile, we remind you that after the 2016 primary campaign, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party was able to get convention rules changed for 2020 so that so-called super-delegates, generally centrist Party People, would not get to vote on the first ballot in the next convention. However, party rules still say that a candidate must win a majority of delegates (1991) to win the nomination on the first ballot. This is important because if no candidate wins a majority of delegates on the first ballot, two things happen: 1) 771 super-delegates (members of the DNC, Congressional Democrats and Governors, and former Presidents and VPs.) get to vote, and 2) All delegates are free to vote their own preferences in subsequent ballots. And that opens the door for some old-fashioned smoke-filled room horse trading for votes.

Since this kind of brokered convention is starting to look like a real possibility, it is safe to assume that all the candidates’ organizations are already working the crowd, as Bloomberg seems to be doing. 

Washington Post Tweetster Lie Count to date : 16,241 as of 01/24/20

 

This week’s tasting

Terra d’Oro Pinot Grigio ’18    California     $14
Nose of ripe, bright pear and clover blossom. Rich and dense, and oozing with juicy pear and stone fruit flavors, finishing with an elegant touch of toasted French oak. Try pairing this delightful wine with a mild cheese and fruit plate.

Terra d’Oro Petite Syrah ’16     California    $14
An exotic earthy character dominates this dark-colored, full-bodied and firmly tannic wine, giving it a rustic feral appeal that gets progressively more enjoyable on the palate and finish. Blackberry and blueberry flavors underneath add to its appeal.

Indaba Merlot  ’17     South Africa      $10
Carefully crafted in a bright, clean style, this velvety Merlot offers appealing aromas and bright, succulent flavors of cherry, dark berry and plum backed by subtle mocha and herbal nuances and a delicate minerality.

Folie a Deux Alexander Valley Merlot ’17     California    $16
Spicy aromas of dark fruits, cassis, cherry, plum, vanilla, oak and a hint of chocolate in the glass. This wine has broad mouth-feel with flavors of cherry, blackberry, cassis, plum and chocolate.

Toso Reserve Malbec ’17      Argentina       $20
Red ripe berries and plum notes. Smooth and delicious; focused, clean notes of violets, plum, and red cherry notes with very good freshness and a plush, elegant mouthfeel with  smooth oak and easy tannins.

 

 

 

 

 

Wine Tasting

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