lummi island wine tasting october 10 ’20
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Moving Inside
Please note that weekly Bread pickup will continue at the Ferry Parking Lot on Fridays from 4 – 5:30 pm through October. And since Janice is reluctant to return to the old Friday night format upstairs in the wine shop, we are exploring ways to set up bread pickup in the partial shelter of the wine shop garage. More on that over the next couple of weeks. So for the next few weeks, Friday Bread pickup will continue to be at the ferry overflow parking lot.
However, beginning this weekend the wine shop is re-opening Saturdays from 3-5 pm for purchases and perhaps a wee splash of a “Wine of the Week.” We don’t think reservations will be necessary, at least for the time being. However, only one group will be allowed inside at a time, but appointments will remain an option for the future.
The usual social distancing guidelines (see below) will apply. Windows will be open and fans and air filters will be in place to maintain a rapid air exchange cycle while the shop is open.
Social Distancing Guidelines:
1. Only one group (up to four people) will allowed in the shop at once for up to 20 minutes.
2. Everyone must wear a mask;
3. Each group must be a “pod” that willingly takes responsibility for managing social distance within their group.
4. Reservations optional (most likely not necessary).
Wine of the Week: Townshend Red Table
Townshend Cellar is located in Greenbluff, Washington, in rolling farm country a little northeast of Spokane. They have been making wine sourced from Columbia Valley fruit since 1998. Their wines are regularly fruit-driven, easy to drink, and good values.
This wine is their low-end — you guessed it — table wine! (The red table on the label always brings a smile.) It is a non-vintage blend of cab, merlot, and syrah from more than one season’s harvest.
Anonymous reviewers sum it up this way:
— Dark, earthy cocoa notes you only get from a PNW wine;
— Mysterious and lovely for the price;
— Medium-bodied, nice dark red with notes of blackberry and a nice pepper finish.
— Delicious red blend and very easy to like.
Townshend Red Table NV Washington $12
Appealing red wine crafted of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah. Bursts with sun-ripened fruit on the nose and entry, with generous fruit and satisfying flavors of purple plums, Bing cherries and boysenberries accented by vanilla bean and toasted oak.
And yes, we will have a bottle open if you drop by!
Mar a Lago Update: Embers of Hope
Don’t know about you, but we are feeling deeply fatigued. As our friend Kevin put it back in the Dubya years, “Things are getting worse faster than I’m getting older.” There was an article in The Nation back in 2003 titled “Rolling Back the Twentieth Century” that explored, based on Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II the rise of the Right over those years and put what we were feeling into clear perspective:
…Movement conservatives envision a restored society in which the prevailing values and power relationships resemble the America that existed around 1900, when William McKinley was President. Governing authority and resources are dispersed from Washington, returned to local levels and also to individuals and private institutions, most notably corporations and religious organizations. The primacy of private property rights is re-established over the shared public priorities expressed in government regulation. Above all, private wealth–both enterprises and individuals with higher incomes–are permanently insulated from the progressive claims of the graduated income tax.
Now, nearly twenty years after the article was written, we can see that the plan has continued to unfold with little effective resistance from the Left. Since it was written we have seen 4 more years of Republican Rule under Bush and eight years of Republican stonewalling of every initiative of the Obama Administration to pass legislation, appoint judges to long-vacant seats, or otherwise participate in the give-and-take compromises that have kept our country moving forward as one indivisible nation for some two centuries.
On top of all that these last four years of the Tweetster have provided the cover of nonstop Distraction and Chaos in his role as their Puppet President while behind the scenes they have indeed continued to transfer vast amounts of wealth from the poorest to the richest and to develop and deploy ubiquitous media platforms that deliver nonstop propaganda to discredit all opposition, including science, truth, compassion, fairness, and ethics.
So. Everything is at stake in this election. Everybody knows that climate change has already made life Economically Uninhabitable in many places, and it is getting worse every year. Everybody knows that the Tweetster is a compulsive liar and less qualified than most of the ordinary people we know to be President. Everybody knows he did in fact commit serious impeachable offenses. And Everybody knows from Republican performances in the Muller, Kavanaugh, and Impeachment hearings that from top to bottom Republican Senators and Representatives are motivated only by expediency and never by principle.
It was, therefore, a little bit comforting that the fly on Pence’s head in last night’s debate seemed to pick up on that…
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