lummi island wine tasting feb 26 ’21
click on photos for larger images
Bread This Week
Le Pave d’autrefois – which translates roughly as old paving stones. This is a ciabatta like bread with a lot of hydration so is simply divided into approximate squares – hence the paving stones name. Made with a mix of bread flour as well as fresh milled whole wheat, rye and buckwheat flours for a lot of hearty whole grain goodness. A great artisan bread -$5/loaf
Black Pepper Walnut- made with bread flour, fresh milled whole wheat and rye. A fair amount of black pepper and toasted walnuts give this bread great flavor with just a bit of peppery bite to it. Would go well with all sorts of meats and cheese – $5/loaf
Pain aux Raisin – made with the same laminated dough as croissants. The dough is rolled out, spread with pastry cream and sprinkled with a mix of golden raisins and dried cranberries soaked in sugar syrup. Rolled up and sliced before baking. – 2/$5
Wines of the Week: Six Wines from Portugal
One of our members has long been lobbying for us to carry more Portuguese wines. Over the last month or two we have tasted and brought in a half dozen very tasty red wines that provide a delicious introduction to a wine tradition that dates back to Roman times. As a group despite modernization of viniculture and enology, these wines still represent faithfully the traditional characteristics of their subregions, in this case the cooler, Atlantic influenced Douro and Dao regions, and the drier and hotter Alentejo region bordering Spain.
Vila Nova Douro Red ’18 Portugal $12
Touriga Nacional, Tempranillo, Touriga Franca; dark ruby color with jammy notes of ripe blueberry and blackberry with crisp accents and a seamless, well-balanced finish with silky tannins.
Quinta Do Vallado Douro Red ’14 Portugal $16
Blend of Touriga Franca, Touriga Nacional,Tinta Roriz, Sousão; Lovely, floral black cherry and blackcurrant fruit; supple yet structured with notes of epper, meat and a lovely herbal twist.
Vicente Faria Gloria Douro Reserva ’16 Portugal $16
40% Tinta Roriz, 30% Touriga Nacional & 30% Touriga Franca; Juicy and delicious blend with aromas of fleshy black plum and blackberries; aged in oak barrels, full-bodied and smooth.
Quinto do Vallado 10 yr Tawny Port Portugal $29
Rich, fresh, and velvety aromas of dry fruits, praline, and orange confit with a note of tobacco on the very persistent and complex finish.
Eloquente Dao Tinto ’18 Portugal $9
Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz, Jaen, and Alfrocheiro Pret; rich and intense, a popular wine from the Dao region with clear ruby color, and clean aroma of red and ripe fruits; soft, balanced flavor with a long finish.
Carmim Reguengos Alentejo Tinto ’18 Portugal $9
Touriga Franca, Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz, Sousão; Fresh, supple, and structured, with lovely black cherry and blackcurrant fruit with notes of pepper, meat, and a lovely herbal twist.
Wine Emergencies…Who Ya Gonna Call?
While Covid continues to limit our movements and associations, we will continue to help you keep your wine shelves topped up. We know how it is…one minute your wine shelves are reassuringly stocked, and the very next day you reach for something and OMD, where did it all go?? It happens to all of us during these undifferentiated days and weeks of semi-quarantine.
But fear not, mis amigos! When a wine emergency strikes YOUR wine pantry, just click on the Order Wine link in the header above to browse our list of currently available wines with tasting notes and prices. When you have made your selections you can phone us with your order or email us using the Contact Us link above. We will confirm your order and make arrangements for pickup/delivery at your convenience. EZ-PZ!
ALSO, we are in the process of restocking some favorites and adding some new wines to our list, including several new Portuguese wines. Hope to get the list updated soon!
Making Elections Fair Again
We read an interesting article this morning discussing several reforms that could protect our elections from the power of extremist politics and candidates. The past four years in general and the past three months in particular have shown stunningly the relative ease with which our institutions can be undermined by Authoritarian cabals.
In view of the increasing political appeal of to the now-dominant Tea Party wing of the Republican Party, the article makes a persuasive case for the need to reform: 1) the Presidential nomination process; 2) the Party Primary process; 3) Replacing legislative gerrymandering with balanced redistricting, and 4) Campaign finance reform.
Reforming the Nominating Process Toward Moderate Candidates
Several decades ago the standard nominating arena was the Party Convention, in which the week-long process of horse-trading generally led to balanced compromises; the more radical a candidate, the less likely to survive the winnowing. Over recent decades the process has shifted more toward primaries, which favor more polarizing candidates who make it to office on small pluralities, not majorities. Ranked-choice voting would bring more of the old convention format leveling by including each voter’s first and second choices when picking the overall winner, making the election behave more like the compromises of the old Convention Method.
Reforming Primaries
In many states, candidates who lose in primaries cannot then run as independents in the same election. Allowing such candidates to run under third-party flags would be another balancing force for competition in the primary process along with ranked-choice voting.
Reform Gerrymandering
In recent decades, State House gerrymandering decisions have succeeded in allowing the party in legislative control in a state to design Congressional districts that effectively maintain their party’s legislative control of a disproportionate share of Congressional seats in the state by manipulating the number of constituents a seat represents in each district.
Reforming Campaign Finance Rules
In general, recent legal decisions on campaign financing lean toward more political narrowing of viewpoints compared to public financing. On the one hand, small donors are more politically motivated than large donors. Various formulas for providing additional public funding proportional to cash raised by small donations raise questions about whether this would increase or decrease polarization.
These ideas are a lot to think about. In addition to all of that, at some point we have to ask the question, “Why are these reforms even necessary? And when we explore that question, we see that there is an implicit assumption that politicians will tell the truth about their positions on issues and voters will vote for the candidate who best represents their values. But since “free speech” in media has come to mean “lying with impunity,” facts themselves have ceased to have common acceptance across political divides.
In the ideal world politicians would adjust their platforms to appeal to enough of their target constituencies to gain a majority of voters. But that’s not what Republicans do. They don’t compete for votes with appeals to logic. They compete for votes by making it harder for their likely opponents to register to vote, to cast ballots, and to have their votes counted. So while we believe the above rules are good ideas, we are left with the Quandary of our Moment in Time: how to tell Truth from Lies.
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