lummi island wine tasting oct 1-2 ’21

Posted at September 30, 2021

Current Covid Protocols

This weekend’s forecast is for relatively dry weather, maybe even a little sun, so we will have outside tasting as an option both Friday and Saturday.

We tried a little indoor tasting last Friday, and people were having such a good time that some degree of Covid mindfulness was lost for a bit.

We will try it again this weekend by being open for wine tasting and sales Friday and Saturday from 4-6pm, with the following guidelines:

 

 

Friday Bread

Each Friday Island Bakery delivers fresh bread ordered by customer email earlier in the week. Each Sunday offerings for the coming Friday are emailed to the mailing list. Orders must be returned by 5 pm on Tuesday for pickup at the wine shop the following Friday from 4-5:30.

Over the years the bakery has established a rotating list of several dozen breads and pastries from which are selected two different artisan breads and a pastry each week.

If you would like to be on the bread order mailing list, click on the Contact Us link at the top of the page and fill out the form.

This week’s pickup:

Breton – Incorporates the flavors of the french Brittany region. Bread flour and fresh milled buckwheat and rye make for interesting flavor and the salt is sel gris -the grey salt from the region that brings more mineral flavors to this bread. Goes great with meats and cheeses – $5/loaf

Spelt Levain – Spelt is an ancient grain with a nutty, slightly sweet flavor; it has gluten but it isn’t as strong as in modern wheat. This bread is made with a levain before the final dough is mixed with traditional bread flour, spelt flour, fresh milled whole spelt and rye. – $5/loaf

and pastry this week…

Traditional Croissants – Made with two preferments, a levain as well as “old dough” where a portion of the flour, water, salt and yeast has been fermented overnight. The final dough is then made with more flour, butter, milk and sugar, and laminated with more butter before being cut and shaped into traditional french croissants. – 2/$5

 

Wine of the Week:  Betz  Clos de Betz  ’08    Washington     $45   Parker 95 pts

Rooting around in the cellar for wines to pour this weekend we discovered a nearly full case of 2008 Betz Clos de Betz , and knowing how carefully Betz wines  were made, this one is probably just starting to hit its stride.

We have probably mentioned in earlier posts that winery founder and long-time winemaker Bob Betz has such a deep affection for French wines that he modeled many of his blends after the style of particular French wine regions.

For example, Clos de Betz is his take on Right Bank Bordeaux, a Merlot-dominant blend with other Bordeaux varietals Cab Sauv, Cab Franc, and Petit Verdot. This contrasts with his Pere de Famille, styled after Left Bank Bordeaux blends in which Cab Sauv is the dominant grape.

Washington merlot often features an unusually weighty richness, lush fruit, and an elegant tannic structure with great aging potential (like, right now it should be just about optimal!), and this wine is a great example.

 

 

 

The Economics of the Heart: Humanism at the Crossroads

It’s been a rough bunch of years for virtues like ethics, kindness, humility, caring, and wisdom. A long forty years ago American politics took a sharp turn to the Right when Reagan began dismantling the New Deal. Safety nets were put in storage while the poor, the sick, the mentally ill, and the homeless were left to fend for themselves, and the money saved quickly started funneling into the bank accounts of the wealthy. The investor class became the new Feudal Lords and amassed great fortunes while multitudes in the middle class saw their real wealth and wages stagnate for an entire generation.

It became common practice over those forty years for Republican administrations to begin each legislative cycle by cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans while increasing government spending on war materials and subsidies to private industry. The results are all around us in the form of climate change, widespread poverty, and worn-out dwellings, roads, bridges, railroads, and utility grids.

Republicans have never understood the difference between economics and finance. Finance is the process of borrowing the resources of others to pay for something for you. Economics is the process of determining whether something is worth doing in the first place, not because it is or is not “profitable,” but because the overall benefits to society exceed the costs. Finance is about maximizing net monetary benefits for lenders; economics is about maximizing net social benefits for Everyone, including concern for equity among winners and losers and the health of the planet.

To digress for a moment, last week we were coming home from a dog walk when Ulee’s leash came unfastened, and with high enthusiasm he took off into the woods after a deer. His barks grew fainter as they got further away. Then I heard other dogs barking as well. Time passed and he didn’t come back. We went looking, no luck. I worried in particular that he might have gotten into a fight with a couple of mean dogs down the street (long story).

Anyway, I walked home, got the car and made a patrol of the area. No sign of him. As I got back in the car, I was suddenly hit with a sense of Hopeless Dread and burst into deep, sobbing, wailing tears. In that moment I really believed he was not going to come back, and it was deeply heartbreaking. I knew it was irrational, that most likely he would be home when I got there. And he was! But that didn’t stop me from doing the same thing then, with a big hug from Pat and a furry snuggle with Ulee.

My takeaway from that experience is that we have all been under a Lot of stress from the exhausting combination of four years of the Daily Chaos of the Tweetster, almost two years of Covid isolation and anxiety, and nearly one year (and counting) of the attack on the Capitol and the subsequent Big Lie.

Now, TODAY, as in this very day, September 30, 2021, a political battle has been joined in our Nation’s capitol for the Future of Life in our country in particular and on our fragile planet Earth in general. At this moment, the outcome rests on the whims of a couple of nominally Democratic Senators whose egos may turn them Republican at the last minute and scuttle both bills, opening the door for a New Republican Fascism from which this fragile and intricately interdependent world will never recover.

There’s a LOT at stake; may Wisdom prevail.

 

This week’s $5 tasting:

Betz  Clos de Betz  ’08    Washington     $45    
66% Merlot, 25% Cab Sauv, 9% Petit Verdot. Tight and precise, with sharply defined edges. Expressive nose of pain grille, graphite, Asian spices, with hints of balsamic, black currant, and blackberry; superb concentration, complexity, layers of fruit, and a lengthy finish. Parker 95 pts 

Olim Bauda La Villa Barbera d’Asti ’17       Italy   $14
Aromas and flavors of dark, rich red berries and currants; rich, ripe style with lots of up-front fruit and beautiful cleansing acidity.

Maryhill Viognier ’18    Washington    $14
Carefully picked and slowly pressed to extract vibrant aromas of melon, pear, and apricot with traces of pineapple and grapefruit, continuing into a sensational and crisp fruit finish.

 

 

 

Wine Tasting

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