lummi island wine tasting may day ’20
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Bread Friday, Covid Rules
Although Social Distancing remains in place to limit the spread of Covid-19, those on the Friday Bread mailing list will continue to receive a Sunday email from Janice with details about the week’s bread menu. And to maintain Social Distancing protocols, for the time being she will continue doing the weekly bread deliveries from her car (you know, the black Tesla that is So Popular with bakers!) from 4-5 pm at the North exit of the ferry overflow parking lot.
It has become something of an impromptu party, with people setting up lawn chairs and wine glasses to hang out for awhile, some kind of new Covid Tailgate event. So…depending on your Social Distancing parameters, you might want to just drive in, pick up, and drive out, or make camp, set up, and Party. At a safe distance, or course. Just sayin’…
Wine Shop Remains Open for Wine Emergencies!
As most of you know, our fifteen-year run of Friday and Saturday Happy Hours have been suspended until social gathering is safe for the retirees that make up most of our membership.
On a more positive note, we have been called in to resolve numerous Wine Emergency orders over the last few weeks, including several who responded to our post last week of a list of recommended wines we currently on board.
The Takeaway here is that when you find yourself in this precarious position, Help is just a phone call away. Click on the ORDER WINE link at the top of this page for a list of many of our current offerings. Then forward your choices to us by using the CONTACT US link above, or by phoning us (number next to logo above right) to arrange a pickup appointment at your convenience. And maybe an elbow bump and a taste of something… 🙂
Wine Notes
The wine list mentioned above has a number of new wines we have never poured for you. So each week we will add notes on a couple of them and keep a bottle open should you drop by to pick up an order.
The Terre Brulee Swartland Chenin Blanc is a new arrival along with a few other wines from South Africa. For some reason we have rarely crossed paths with this French varietal that originated in France over a thousand years ago as Chenere. It was renamed Chenin Blanc in the 15th Century, and introduced to South Africa, where it is the dominant white wine grape, by the late 17th Century. There is some speculation that the grape is an offspring of savagnin, the dominant white grape of the French Jura region, where it is traditionally allowed to oxidize during fermentation. In the current manifestation offered here is evidence of this long history. The wine is pleasing on many levels, with aromas of soft, ripe aromatic stone fruits and crisp acidity of Spanish verdejo, to which it may also be related. All in all, it’s an intriguing and enjoyable wine for the season.
Notes: Enticing floral aromas of white flowers, honeysuckle, yellow apple, and citrus; palate shows textural richness and precision, juicy and vibrant acidity, and lingering notes of yellow apple and grapefruit.
We brought in the Summers Andrianna’s Cuvee ’17 several weeks ago on the recommendation of one of our reps. It is a California cab blend from Calistoga and shows overlapping influences of the Sonoma and Napa wine regions. See Tech Sheet As it was recommended to us for some reason the wine usually sells for around $20, but was available for a price that would allow us to sell it for $14. So we bought two cases a few weeks ago, and have poured it for some of our recent Emergency customers, who all bought some. We just got another two cases (!). The main thing here is that this wine really is worth the price it usually sells for, and we have No Idea why it is for the moment such a bargain, but this is a tasty wine at an exceptional price.
Notes: A blend of Cabernet Sauvignon grapes procured from several select vineyards in Napa and Sonoma Counties, including the Summers’ own vineyards. A medium-bodied wine with a deep ruby plum color, rich in texture, showing notes of black currant, cedar and spice. Laced with plums, espresso and dark cherries, with subtle floral notes rounding out the finish.
Mar a Lago Update: Let Them Eat Surplus Labor!
Never let it be said that the Tweetster hasn’t Outdone Dubya, who in his last year in office presided over what was then the worst economic Crash since the Great Depression. President Obama stepped into that mess and over the next eight years carefully and deliberately kept a Steady Hand on the Tiller. Using the same Keynesian economic rationale as FDR used during the Depression, Obama used government deficit spending, tax cuts, and government loans to stimulate economic activity. Progress was slow but steady, and by the end of his second term in office, the economy had been rebuilt and was working again.
Why did that work? Because in the Keynesian model, the economy is a circular flow where investment produces infrastructure, which produces demand for labor, which pays wages, which pay for household goods and services, which pay businesses, and so on. The message: if aggregate demand falls, stimulate the economy by lowering taxes and increasing spending.
The Republicans have never grokked Keynes, preferring to imagine that Investment is the main driver of the economy, and therefore Investors must be coaxed to invest by low interest rates and low taxes, which will allow them to create capital, start new businesses and pay higher wages, which will increase consumer spending. So, they imagine, it is the same thing as Keynes, only better, because basically they like the picture that has the money start at the top. Unfortunately it didn’t work with Reagan, or with Bush, or with the Tweetster. The tax cuts have never delivered the promised economic growth, because consumer spending is the largest force in the circular flow. If consumers don’t earn, they don’t spend, and the whole machine slows down.
At present Social Distancing has shut down extensive parts of the economy, and the government has agreed upon a pretty good (Keynesian) plan to keep the circular flow going with huge increases in unemployment subsidies and rent and loan payment deferments. These are good ideas that are very likely to keep a light on in the window while we fight the Covid virus.
Yet in the last few days we now have a Movement among Red State Republican pols to relax social distancing protocols sooner rather than later. At root what is driving these guys crazy is the idea that working people should get anything for “free” while at the same time their entire Class gets Fat from a deep Matrix of interconnected laws that lets them pass Go and collect a Prize every time anyone uses a credit card just because they wear a fooking necktie.
At the end of the day we stick with our belief that the Default political economy of human beings is Feudalism. It’s not about Honor, or Valor, or Honesty, or any other known Virtue. It’s about raw selfishness, power, and Entitlement. Maybe we should work on a vaccine against Tyranny…
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2072 Granger Way