lummi island wine tasting may 23-24 ’24
Drydock Hours May 17-18 ’24
We seem to have successfully made it through the first week of drydock and passenger-only ferry. Had to make three trips to town this week. We have a car on the mainland side in the limited luck-of- the-draw roadside parking available…every day it’s parking roulette. We were lucky to get spaces about a five minute walk from the dock the first two days, but today was more like ten. So we should be pretty much set till drydock ends around 6/11.
We will remain OPEN for wine tasting and sales as usual:
Fridays 4-6 pm Saturdays 3-5 pm
This week’s wine tasting
Sineann Gruner Veltliner ’23 Washington $20
Made with fruit from Pear Blossom Vineyards in the spectacular Columbia Gorge, this Gruner has classic aromatics, great acidity, and remarkable body, texture, and mouthfeel.
Chapoutier CdR Belleruche Rouge ’21
Intense black currant and raspberry notes with hints of white pepper; juicy, lovely palate with silky, delicate tannins; good pairing for grilled meats, pizza, pasta, and and (someone says) especially lamb ragu!
Black Stallion Napa Cabernet “21 $28
Powerful, driving wine with notes of blueberry jam, lavender, graphite, crushed rocks, and sweet oak make for a brooding Cabernet that will benefit from a year or two in bottle
Friday Bread This Week
Levain w/ Dried Cherries and Pecans –A levain is made by mixing the dough with a sourdough starter to begin the fermentation process. The final dough is made with the levain, bread flour and fresh milled whole wheat and then loaded up with dried cherries and toasted pecans. A nice rustic loaf that goes well with meats and cheese – $5/loaf
Pan de Cioccolate – Also made with a levain, this bread is a delicious chocolate artisan bread… an enriched sweet pastry dough with lots of eggs, butter and sugar. Rather it is a rich chocolate bread made with a fermented levain, bread flour, fresh milled rye flour, honey for sweetness, vanilla, and plenty of dark chocolate. Makes fabulous toast, & even better french toast! – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Brioche Tarts au Sucre – aka Brioche Sugar Tarts– A rich brioche dough full of eggs and butter is rolled into a round tart and topped with more eggs, cream, butter and sugar. These are perfect with fresh fruit on top! – 2/$5–2/$5
Island Bakery has developed a rotation cycle of several dozen breads and pastries. Each Sunday Janice emails the week’s bread offering to her mailing list. Orders received before 5 pm Tuesday will be available for pickup at the wine shop each Friday from 4:00 – 5:30 pm. Go to Contact us to get on the bread email list.
Wine of the Week: Sineann Gruner Veltliner ’23 Oregon $20
Gruner Veltliner is a relatively new varietal in Washington that, like so many others from Europe, seems to feel at home with our climate of hot days and cool nights. Like the great Gruners of central Europe, here in Washington they are also among the most food friendly of white wines, with beautiful aromatics, acidity, complexity of fruit and mouth feel.
The fruit for this one came from Pear Blossom Vineyards in the spectacular Columbia Gorge.
The wine has classic aromatics, great acidity, remarkable body, and a mouthfeel like few others.
So, to remain in nonchalant equilibrium through drydock, we recommend attending our weekly tastings on Fridays and Saturdays (see hours, above)…!
Mar a Lago Update: Democracy at the Crossroad
In my heart, this week feels as if Everything Depends on the outcome of this little trial in NY. You know the one. Early next week the case will be turned over to the jury, and together these twelve people will decide not just the future of the Tweetster, but the future of every living thing on our planet. And whether there will even BE a future for any kind of life on this planet for very long.
My fear is that if the jury is rigged with one or more Maga Believers, it will mark the end of everything our country has stood for in our lifetimes. Power will be completely concentrated in the hands of a very small number of extraordinarily wealthy white Protestant men from Red States whose only interest will be to eliminate all threats to their own Power and Wealth.
They will achieve their ages-old Capitalist Corporate Wet Dream of eliminating all those annoying rules and regulations having to do with anyone’s so-called “rights,” or “environmental protection,” or “equal standing before the Law,” or the right for a woman to decide for herself if her personal and economic circumstances will allow her to provide adequately for a child (or another child).
It is blatant Hubris for any human to Assert that Their superstition about the Existence or the Nature of The Supreme Being are somehow superior in the Eye of that Being to those of all the other religious philosophies across human history. Those in many cultures who have presumed to speak for the intentions of a Supreme Being have allowed small groups of men (and sometimes women) to dominate entire cultures using religious claptrap to justify their Authority over everyone and everything.
As described in great and interesting detail in a very thought-provoking book some years ago, “The Alphabet Versus the Goddess,” there is a direct line from the development of writing to the oppression of individual spiritual inquiry and experience. We see throughout the world how governments have enforced conformity to the rules of their Bibles, or their Korans, or their Commandments to gain and maintain control and dominion over the Believers.
Other experiments over time have shown that as the density of a population of rats reaches a certain point, they all go mad, destroying habitat and each other. Maybe this present world our species has created with such blithe hubris is another kind of “God” that is thinking, “well, these little beings have been an interesting distraction in the ongoing creation and destruction of Everything in Every Moment, so let’s see how they will handle This, (hee hee…) as our collective behavior rolls out the next challenge to our collective existence.
So, we digress…the point is that a powerful, dangerous collective insanity has metastisized in our nation’s body politic which, like the worms eating RFK, jr’s brain, are shredding our Constitution, our values, our will to care for one another and for the health and well-being of every living thing on our little planet. It is always dangerous to believe that any subset of humans knows what’s best for all humans.
And the court decision next week will tell us something meaningful about where we are with our collective karma. No, not the kind of karma like “destiny,” but rather the kind of karma like “every step creates the conditions for the next step,” so “Be careful where you step!”
In any case, one week of drydock down, three to go. Hope you can stop by this weekend, see hours above.
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