lummi island wine tasting july 22-23 ’22
Hours this weekend: 4-6pm both Friday and Saturday
This weekend we will be open as usual from 4-6 Fri-Sat, with limited outdoor seating available on the deck for those who wish to stay outside.
Covid cases remain low at about 2 per 1000, considerably lower than chances of getting the annual flu. You are welcome to wear masks and/or stay outside as additional precautions to protect yourself and others. For our part, we will continue taking basic precautions in the wine shop: windows open, air filter operating, outside seating options. We do continue to request that the unvaxed remain outside for tasting.
Fyi, the forecast is for warm sunny weather all weekend…
Bread Pickup 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. – $5/loaf
Cinnamon Raisin – Fermented overnight with a poolish of bread and fresh milled rye flour before mixing with bread flour and freshly milled whole wheat as well as rolled oats. Some honey for sweetness, a little milk for a tender crumb and loaded with raisins and a healthy dose of cinnamon. The cinnamon is mixed into the dough and flavors the entire bread for a hearty rustic loaf. – $5/loaf
and mmm, pastry this week…!
Individual Cinnamon Rolls –Made with a rich sweet roll dough 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 rolls for baking. And boy are they delicious! – 2/$5.
To get on the bread order list, click on the “Contact Us” link above and fill out the form. Each week’s bread menu is sent to the list each Sunday, for ordering by Tuesday, for pickup on Friday. Simple, right..? If you will be visiting the island and would like to order bread for your visit, at least a week’s notice is recommended for pickup the following Friday.
Wine of the Week: Parducci Small Lot Petite Sirah ’20 Mendocino $15
Parducci Winery is the oldest winery in Mendocino County, founded in 1921 during Prohibition by Tuscan immigrant Adolph Parducci. His first vineyards were of petite sirah, and his old “home ranch vineyard” is still making wine from that signature Petite Sirah. The winery prospered and stayed in the family until 2004, when it was sold to a group of native Mendocino investors with lengthy vineyard and winery management experience. They have been making a concerted effort to manage the vineyards sustainably and symbiotically with the regional environment. watch video
Petite Sirah is a distinct grape variety developed from Syrah and Peloursin around 1850 in France. Peloursin is now quite rare, but is occasionally found in blends from some older vineyards in California.
Tasting notes: Rich and full-bodied, with dense blueberry and cocoa flavors and tongue-coating and lingering soft tannins that extend the saturated fruit flavors on the finish.
The Economics of the Heart: An Ongoing Civil War
Forbes.com, american-flag-on-cracked-background
Every once in a while we read something that unexpectedly pulls several seemingly unrelated issues into such a compelling systemic context that we have something of a “Eureka!” moment. That happened this week while reading an interview from last March with Barbara Walter, a political scientist at UCSD, who recently published a fascinating and timely book: How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them.
Over the decades political scientists have collected lots of data about revolutions and tested lots of models in search of a set of variables that could best predict them. In 1994 the CIA started a think tank called the Political Instability Task Force to identify effective metrics to assess a society’s likelihood of civil war. Over time the group has examined some 250 historical instances of acute instability between 1955 and 2002, assessed some thirty different factors as possible predictors, and found only two that had significant predictive value.
The first factor is a nation’s degree of anocracy, its tendency to be autocratic or democratic. Scores ranged from -10 for a completely autocratic state like North Korea to +10 for a completely democratic state like Denmark or Canada. Most countries are somewhere in between. The US is currently at a +5, down from the +10 it had enjoyed since the scale was invented. Countries in the ambiguous zone between -5 and +5 have significant and conflicting elements of both and are therefore considered at higher risk for revolution than either stable democracies or stable autocracies.
The second factor is whether the current dominant organizing principle in the society is based on ideology (values) or identity (religion, ethnicity, race). While ideological differences lend themselves well to democratic compromise, identity differences are much more likely to lead to animosity, tribalism, and even civil war.
In the interview Professor Walter relates a story of how her father, a young German boy during the Nazi years, before emigrating to the US in the 50’s, became very agitated about the Trump candidacy and election in 2016, seeing in his politics many parallels to the Nazi brown-shirts of his childhood: twisting facts, denigrating minorities and immigrants, and undermining dissent.
There have always been political differences in American politics, but compromises have led to deals, public business has been conducted, and the government has been stable. The eye-opening takeaway from the author’s observations is that the political battle that has been going on in our country since about 1992 has never been just a simple clash of liberal and conservative values. It began in the 90’s with Gingrich’s open warfare against the Clinton White House in particular and Congressional Democrats in general. It started becoming less and less about ideas and values and more and more about identity.
That was accelerated by populist response to the Obama Presidency, which in turn led to the election of some 87 “Tea Party” Republicans in 2010 who espoused the extreme views of the Koch brothers and its lobbying arm ALEC. Most of them came from such heavily gerrymandered conservative districts they were largely guaranteed election, unless they lost a primary to a candidate further to their Right. With no incentive to move toward the center for reelection, they have have increasingly refused to compromise on any issue rather than give Democrats a “win” on anything– quite willing to let their constituents suffer rather than compromise.
It is difficult to see anything positive coming from the increased militancy of the Right, spotlighted spectacularly by the recent authoritarian Supreme Court decisions to overturn Roe v. Wade and to forbid the EPA from regulating carbon emissions. Our nation seems to be nearing a turning point: The party’s long-term viability may be in doubt if a strategy of mindless, implacable obstruction endangers the stability and prosperity of the country, causing too many voters to consider it an existential threat. Cynical political realism, if nothing else, suggests that the Republican Party can’t carry on forever as a permanent revolution. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/12/04/tea-party-trumpism-conservatives-populism/)
This Week’s $5 Tasting
La Vielle Ferme Rosé ’20 France $11
Classic and tasty blend of grenache, syrah, and cinsault from northern Provence; fruity, dry, crisp, delicious, and smooth, all at a bargain price!
The Wolftrap Syrah Mourvèdre Viognier ’18 South Africa $12
Aromas of ripe plums, red currants, violets, Italian herbs and exotic spices lead to vibrant flavors of darker berries and spicy plum with hints of orange peel that linger on a juicy finish.
Parducci Small Lot Petite Sirah ’20 Mendocino $15
Rich, dark, and full-bodied wine with dense blueberry and cocoa flavors, and tongue-coating, lingering soft tannins that give pleasing length to the saturated fruit flavors on the finish.
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2072 Granger Way