lummi island wine tasting sept 30 ’16
(note: some photos will enlarge when clicked)
Friday Breads
Pain Meunier- “Miller’s Bread;” uses all parts of the wheat berry to make a flavorful and hearty artisan bread. A portion dough is fermented overnight before adding fresh milled whole wheat, cracked wheat and wheat germ. – $5/loaf.
Italian Walnut, Golden Raisin & Honey – Uses an italian “biga” pre-ferment overnight before adding more bread and fresh milled whole wheat as well as a healthy portion of toasted walnuts, golden raisins and honey. – $5/loaf.
Pastry this week – Brioche au Chocolat – A rich brioche dough full of butter and eggs, spread with pastry cream, and loaded with chocolate before being folded up and sliced. Ooh la la! – 2/$5
Ripasso
The wine known as valpolicella is made from a blend of the Corvina, Rondinella and Molinara grapes grown around the city of Verona. The grapes are harvested, crushed, fermented, and made directly into a tasty, medium bodied, dry red wine with good acidity and a soft fruitiness that goes well with the local cuisine.
Back in Roman times the region produced a sweet wine the Romans prized and called Retia– likely the ancestor of a modern sweet wine called Recioto. Until recently it was hit-or-miss to try to make a sweet wine, because it was difficult to stop fermentation and leave “residual” sugar in the wine. One old technique for making sweet wine is to let the grapes raisin before pressing, concentrating the sugar. Such is the case with the modern dry wine Amarone, in which the best grapes are left to ripen into winter, then picked, dried, pressed and fermented dry. The resulting much-prized wine is rich but not sweet. There is some suggestion that amarone was first made by mistake due to secondary fermentation in what was intended to be a sweet wine.
Ripasso is a process in which dry valpolicella wine is “passed over” the raisin-must from their first pressing (to make amarone), adding to the “simple” valpolicella hints of the rich texture and flavor of amarone, and therefore sometimes called “poor man’s Amarone.”
The Wealth Horizon
Maybe this is the place where economics meets Relativity. Or maybe it’s the place where Reality itself meets Relativity. We are talking, of course, about an Event Horizon at which the ordinary laws of economics are turned upside down. We all grew up with the Common Wisdom that anyone who works hard, plans ahead, and Follows the Rules will achieve Economic Success. Okay, so let’s look at that. Since 1980 on average everyone whose primary source of income was their own labor has seen the purchasing power of their income fall.
On the other hand, since 1980, people whose primary source of income has been earnings on capital (stocks, bonds, land, factories) have seen their incomes grow exponentially. Take Donald Trump for example (please!). He started out with millions of dollars. Over the years, despite a half-dozen bankruptcies, he has accumulated billions. Yet here he has stood before us daily for the past year to demonstrate that whatever wealth he has accumulated has nothing to do with the above Common Wisdom. Rather, he has accumulated vast wealth Despite his obvious inability to string two consecutive thoughts together into an actual Idea. So, obviously there is something Wrong with our Theory of Wealth.
We hypothesize the existence of a Wealth Horizon, a sort of Wealth Discontinuity. On one side of it the laws of economics hold: those who live by selling their labor can get ahead– up to a point– with hard work and perseverance. But on the other side, the Gravity of Accumulated Wealth becomes so Yooge that it Sucks wealth from the other side at a faster and faster rate. It is so Powerful that no amount of stupidity, bad luck, or incompetence will make the slightest difference– the wealth keeps streaming across the Wealth Horizon at an ever-increasing rate until the Entire System Collapses into an Incredible, Unbelievable, Economic Black Hole. So stay tuned. Seriously. And don’t worry, we have people looking at this. Our People will be looking at this.
Cutest Villages Ever
There is an actual designation for places that make the cut as “most beautiful villages in France.” I’m not making this up! We have been to several over the years. They are So Cute you want to bring the whole town home with you. It’s not that you actually want to live there, as maybe you just want here to be a little more like there. Maybe it’s a sense of History, or Tradition, or just plain Precious Cuteness. Or something in our Common Heritage. Hard to say. Anyway, here are a few photos of some pretty cute French villages. See what you think!
This week’s wine tasting
Ottella Lugana Bianco ’15 Italy $12
Trebbiano di Lugano (Turbiana). Intense straw yellow color with green tinges. Exotic notes of candied fruit and citrus, warm and very deep on the nose. Widespread expressive finesse, with rich and persistent texture.
Tintero Elvio Rosato ’15 Italy $10
Mostly Barbera; lurid pink. Lively red berries and floral cherry on the nose; fleshy raspberry and bitter cherry flavors pick up a hint of anise with air. Can stand up to o strong cheeses and spicy charcuterie.
Montfaucon Cotes du Rhone ’13 France $13
50% Grenache co-fermented on skins with syrah, cinsault, carignan from 40 yr old vines; matured in concrete tanks. Good ripeness and lots of minerality along with fleshy plum, blackberry and licorice notes. A floral hint adds charm on the finish. (read more)
Sant’ Antonio Monti Garbi Ripasso ’13 Italy $17
A gorgeous, expressive, tasty Valpolicella; floral notes give lift to the expressive, beautifully centered palate and a long, polished finish.
La Baronne Piece de Roche ’12 France $30
From 120-year-old Carignan vines in alluvial soil; concentrated and energetic, with layers of dried blueberries, cassis, and bitter huckleberries, a black powder-like pungency, and a brash brightness and salty tang on the finish.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
2072 Granger Way