lummi island wine tasting nov 5 ’21
Current Covid Protocols
Last week we were stranded off-island with our trailer down at Bayview State Park, planning to come back to open last Friday. However, the ferry broke down, and since we couldn’t come home, we stayed another night, uncertain when the ferry would return.
As luck would have it, we got to the ferry line a little after 2 pm, expecting a long line of cars. But as luck would have it, we arrived just as the first run of our trusty Whatcom Chief pulled in, and we were home by 2:30. We did open the wine shop, but had only two visitors.
Therefore, we will pour the same wine list as was scheduled for last week.
This week we will again offer indoor tastings on Friday and Saturday from 4-6 pm, with our familiar Covid requests:
— You must have completed a full Covid vaccination sequence to participate;
— We ask all to maintain mindful social distance from people outside your regular “neighborhood pods.”
Friday Bread
Each Sunday bread offerings for the coming Friday are emailed to the mailing list by Island Bakery. Orders returned by the 5 pm Tuesday deadline are baked and available for pickup each Friday at the wine shop from 4:00 – 5:30 pm. To get on the bread order mailing list, click on the Contact Us link at the top of the page and fill out the form.
Over the years the bakery has established a rotating list of several dozen breads and pastries from which two different artisan breads and a pastry are selected each week.
This week’s deliveries:
Toasted Pecan & Flax Seed – This levain bread is different than most of the levain breads that I do as it is made with a starter that is fed with rye flour instead of wheat flour which creates a different flavor profile. The final dough is made with bread flour as well as fresh milled whole wheat. Toasted pecans, flax seeds and honey all add up for a very flavorful bread – $5/loaf.
Heidebrot – Translated as “bread of the heath,” after a region in central Germany known for fields of red heather. This is a farmhouse bread from an aromatic, lighter sourdough made with whole grain rye. a rye-fed sourdough starter, fresh milled whole grain rye flour, and regular bread flour as well – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Morning Buns – Made with the same laminated dough as croissants. The dough is rolled out, spread with a filling of brown sugar, orange zest, butter and cinnamon, and rolled up and sliced before baking. – 2/$5
Wine of the Week: Longship Lady Wolf Malbec ’18 Washington $25
Longship is a fairly new family-owned winery in Richland, in the heart of Washington wine country. Established in 2013, it has focused on producing big, hand-crafted, barrel-aged, red varietals like tempranillo, malbec, syrah, cabernet sauvignon, with at least 60% proportion aged for 18 months in new oak barrels.
The name “Longship,” and the adoption of the Viking Longship as the winery’s logo is a nod to the family’s Scandinavian heritage and the winery’s ongoing journey to produce some of the finest wines in the Pacific Northwest.
The Richland tasting room was added at the end of 2016, not just to feature their wines, but also, as is the case here at the Wine Gallery, to create a social space where friends can gather to relax in a convivial environment while sharing delicious handcrafted wine.
We took an immediate liking to the wine when we tasted it a couple of weeks ago. Chances are you will, too!
The Economics of the Heart: Reconsidering Nuclear Power
For the past several years we have been making relatively frequent trailer trips to Corvallis. That’s because Pat’s son Donald (himself a new papa) was attending OSU studying fermentation science. On those trips we have regularly stayed at the Benton County campground/ fairgrounds about five minutes away from their place. For a couple of years the park hosts were a couple in which he attended to the park, and she was involved in an interesting project at OSU with a company called NuScale. The goal of the project was nothing less than to develop the next generation of nuclear reactors, designed specifically to be SMR’s: small modular reactors, that could replace fossil fuel powered electric generation over the next few decades.
Just today, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Romanian Minister of Energy Virgil Popescu announced a new commercial partnership between NuScale Power and Nuclearelectrica that was signed earlier this week while meeting at the UN Conference on Climate Change (COP26) in Glasgow. The company’s SMR design is just completing a long process of becoming the first ever to be approved by the NRC. The deal with Romania is one of many international projects under development.
As the video above shows, on the production side, the new technology being developed by NuScale and its partners is more efficient and less expensive in both dollars and environmental risks than either earlier generations of nuclear reactors or current fossil fuel technology. At the same time it is abundantly clear that we are many decades away from any possibility to provide all our energy from non-polluting renewables. Deploying the next generation of nuclear power generation shows great potential for greatly reducing the former risks of nuclear power production and combating climate change by replacing the coal-fired power plants that are the primary consumers of fossil fuels.
That leaves us with one other caveat about nuclear energy. One way to describe it is to relate a conversation I had a couple of decades ago with a gentleman about the age I am now (today I turned 76!) , when we were sitting on his lovely boat a few slips away from my own old, barely afloat, and yet beautiful in her way sloop Windsong. I was admiring the finish on his exterior wood trim, and he told me it was a certain teak oil. After some discussion of all the high-tech finishes that were even then available, he said, “Now when someone is trying to sell me some high-tech finish, the first question I ask is, “Yup, sounds good…but How Do You Get it Off?” The Nuclear corollary is “Sounds good, but Whattaya do with the Waste?”
As it turns out, Finland has come up with a pretty good answer (sorry about the 15 sec of ads) to the very demanding nuclear waste disposal problem. As shown in the video, Finland has been constructing the world’s first Deep Geologic Waste Repository for spent nuclear fuel. The waste is packed into individual boron steel canisters which are then enclosed in individual corrosion-resistant copper canisters, inserted into individual holes in the billion-year-old bedrock, backfilled with bentonite clay, and sealed to lie inert for a Very, Very Long Time.
The evidence is overwhelming that our continued use of fossil fuels is 1) destroying the ability of our planet to support life, and 2) getting worse every minute. Back in the fifties or sixties, these things were the stuff of far-out science fiction fantasies. But in 2021 this is our Reality; our Darwinian Karma unfolding before our very eyes under the hands of all our fellow humans.
This week’s $5 tasting:
Planeta Segreta Il Bianco Sicily $14
Clear yellow with greenish hints; engaging aromas of citrus and flowers and hints of peach, papaya and chamomile. Balanced and refined, with a lingering and refreshing finish.
FontanaFredda Briccotondo Piemonte Barbera ’18 Italy $15
Nose of blackberries and plums, with hints of black pepper and cinnamon. Crisp and fresh on the palate with sweet, soft tannins, silky texture, and great fruit character.
Longship Lady Wolf Malbec ’18 Washington $25
100 % malbec; unfolds with dark, enchanting notes of blackberry, grilled plum, and jammy raspberry with accents of orange peel, vanilla, and tobacco spice, finishing with balanced structure, plush texture, and a lengthy finish.
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2072 Granger Way