lummi island wine tasting dec 29 ’17 New Year’s weekend
(note: some photos will enlarge when clicked)
New Year’s Breads
Cinnamon Raisin – Made with a nice mix of bread flour, freshly milled whole wheat and rolled oats. Some honey for sweetness, a little milk for a tender crumb and loaded with raisins and a healthy dose of cinnamon. No swirl of cinnamon sugar in the middle…the cinnamon is mixed in and flavors the entire bread for a hearty rustic loaf. Great for breakfast toast, even better for french toast – $5/loaf
Seeded Country Hearth- Also made with a mix of bread flour and some fresh milled whole wheat. Then loaded up with pumpkin, sunflower and poppy seeds. So good and So good For You! A nice rustic bread. – $5/loaf
and for pastry this week…
Brioche au Chocolate – A rich brioche dough made with plenty of butter, eggs and sugar, rolled out and spread with pastry cream before sprinkling with dark chocolate. The dough is folded over all that delicious filling and cut into individual pieces. As with all pastry quantities are limited so if you want these delightful pastries be sure and get your order in early. 2/$5
Holiday Wine Shop Schedule
Friday, December 29- open 4-7 for wine tasting and bread pickup
Saturday, December 30- open 2-6 for wine tasting as usual
Sunday, December 31- 12th annual East Coast New Year’s Eve Party 7-9 pm!
As the Fortunate Few well know, our annual “East Coast New Year’s Eve Party” has become a Hallowed Tradition. From 7-9pm on New Year’s Eve we provide the wine, you bring Something Delicious to share, and when the ball drops in Times Square three hours away, we all hoist our glasses and toast the New Year! The Young at Heart move on to their next party, and we Old Timers can get to bed at a decent hour! We welcome this annual opportunity to Thank all of you for your support this year, and to toast ahead to even more fun in aught-eighteen. Arrrr, lads and lassies, ye best mark yer calendars now ‘n’ start plannin’ yer Finger Foods!
Important Note! Speaking of Finger Food, we will again this year have a Secret Operative sampling the dishes and Assigning Points! Yummiest Dish wins a $25 credit, and Yummiest-Looking Dish wins a $15-dollar credit! Let’s see if Competition really does improve Quality!
Wine Club Reminder
All Wine Club memberships expire at the end of each calendar year! In order to keep enjoying Membership Savings through 2018 you must renew your membership. Also, we regret that rising costs demand that in order to continue our Generous Pours, we are raising the Wine Club Membership fee for 2018 from $35 to $50 to help close the Gap a bit on our expenses.
The Good News is that to make all of this more Palatable, if you are a current wine club member and buy any mixed case of wine before December 31, you can renew your membership for 2018 for the old rate of $35! Think about it! And while you’re at it, Consider that we have just Replenished our Stock of Theo’s Chocolate, including delicious bars, Almond Butter Cups, and Chocolate Coconut Clusters!
The Good Stuff
Some of you may have noticed a new display in the wine shop the last few weeks. Over the years we find we have built up an eclectic collection of some pretty nice wines. For various reasons most of them have never made it to our shelves: too few bottles or too expensive to pour for a tasting, or got lost in the cellar, any number of reasons.
These are all wines that we consider well above average, including Betz, Long Shadows, Quilceda Creek, Andrew Will, Felsina, Colomé, Ferrand, Osmin, El Nido, and several Brunellos. Since it is the Holiday Season, these are wines are all deserving of a Splurge, Something Special to Accompany a Special Event, or to Be a Special Event. Either way, next time you are in the shop check them out. Tasting notes and critic scores are provided. Bon appetit!
Mar a Lago Update: Opinions are Facts, but Facts are Not Opinion
As 2017 slogs to its Surreal Dystopian Close, Republicans are Giddy with the Final Realization of their Tax Cut Wet Dream Fantasy. They think it’s Step One toward their 80-year Goal of Rolling Back the New Deal and getting back to the Good Old Days of the Great Depression.
It seems to us Wildly Unlikely that any of them actually Believe that Trickle-Down 4.0 will be good for for Anyone but their Über-Rich Overlords and (they hope) Themselves. Over the next year or two we can expect to endure a lot of Self-Congratulatory Chest-Beating and Short Fat Fingers pointing at Piles of Sheeyit and Celebrating it as the Long-Promised Shinola. So this is a good time to start laying out for Them and for Ourselves how to tell One from The Other as the Results come in over the next year.
The First Major Claim of the Plan is that their Drastic lowering of Corporate Taxes will very quickly (this year!) lead to Major New Corporate Investment here in the U.S., increasing wages and employment. Easy to check, huh…? Most economists predict that these Windfalls will instead show up as increases in shareholder dividends, buy-backs of company stock, and yet another round of Executive Bonuses. There is no Quid Pro Quo built in here, no Accountable Requirement that Corporations earn these Gains by Actually Investing in American Infrastructure. It’s just a Giveaway.
So over the next year let’s all keep our eyes on the Facts as they Unfold. “Sheeyit” means middle and lower incomes continue downward while upper incomes continue upward. “Shinola” means corporations invest increasing $$ in the US, and lower and middle class families really do start getting an increasing share of the Economic Pie. No doubt lots of pundits will be following this through the next year. Our prediction: Promised gains for the lowest 90% will continue to remain Around the Next Corner, while riches will pile up even more at the Top. (My, my, how did we get so Skeptical?). Stay tuned; Time and Results will tell. As long as you can tell S…t from S…a you will be able to figure it out. In the meantime, we hope you can drop by this weekend and taste some wine!
This week’s wine tasting
Ruffino Sparkling Rose Italy $13
Elegant and stylish, made primarily from the Glera grape, blended with Pinot Noir. Fresh and fragrant, with notes of strawberry and slight hints of rose petals. Alluring flavors of delicate red berries and white fruits linger through the finish.
Rodney Strong Chardonnay ’15 California $11
60% barrel fermented and aged on lees in barrel for 6 months; 40% cold fermented in stainless steel for a fresh fruit-forward character. Aromas of baked apple, pear and citrus with white blossom aromas. Flavors of baked fruit and toasty brioche with a creamy, well-balanced finish.
Bocelli Sangiovese ’15 Italy $14
Bright,, lush, and appealing; deliciously ripe and smoky, with notes of marasca cherry, granite, and rhubarb compote. Finish is long and dry, with admirable acidity that makes the palate taut and pleasing.
Castano Solanera Vinas Viejas ’13 Spain 92pts $14
Monastrell, Cab, Grenache from high-elevation limestone soils; dense purple color, a big sweet kiss of blueberry and blackberry fruit mixed with crushed chalk, full-bodied mouthfeel, beautiful purity, density and richness with lavish fruit.
Gilbert Cellars Left Bank Red ’14 Washington $18
(Cab, Merlot, Carmenere, Cab Franc and Petit Verdot) Meaty, with notes of tobacco, earth, charcoal and dark fruits, medium+ body, with a firm, structured feel on the palate. 19 months in 80% French and 20% American oak.
lummi island wine tasting december 22 ’17
(note: some photos will enlarge when clicked)
Christmas Breads
Cranberry Walnut Braid – A yeast bread enriched with buttermilk, eggs, sugar, butter and lemon. Then stuffed full of dried cranberries and toasted walnuts. This bread has a soft, tender crumb and is bursting with flavor, a great addition to your Christmas table -or Christmas morning breakfast as french toast! – $5/loaf
Pain aux Noix- In France all nuts are referred to as Noix, in this case hazelnuts. This is a delicious bread made with bread flour and fresh milled white whole wheat, milk and butter are added for a tender crumb and some honey for sweetness. Then it is loaded up with toasted hazelnuts. It is a traditional celebratory bread -$5/loaf
For pastry this week:
Gibassiers – A traditional french pastry that incorporates the flavors from the southern France region. Made with a delicious sweet dough full of milk, butter, eggs and olive oil. The addition of orange flower water, candied orange peel and anise seed bring great flavor to these pastries. After baking they are brushed with melted butter and sprinkled with more sugar. Ooh La La a delightful pastry with your morning coffee or tea. – 2/$5
Holiday Wine Shop Schedule
- Friday, December 22- open 4-7 for both wine tasting and bread pickup, Janice hosting
- Saturday, December 23- closed
- Friday, December 29- open 4-7 for wine tasting and bread pickup
- Saturday, December 30- open 2-6 for wine tasting as usual
- Sunday, December 31- 12th annual East Coast New Year’s Eve Party 7-9 pm (see below)
We wish all of you a Wonderful Christmas Holiday, and look forward to seeing you New Year’s weekend!
12th annual East Coast New Year’s Eve Party!
As the Fortunate Few well know, our annual “East Coast New Year’s Eve Party” is a Hallowed Tradition. From 7-9pm on New Year’s Eve we provide the wine, you bring Something Delicious to share, and when the ball drops in Times Square three hours away, we all hoist our glasses and toast the New Year! The Young at Heart move on to their next party, and we Old Timers can get to bed at a decent hour! We welcome this annual opportunity to Thank all of you for your support this year, and to toast ahead to even more fun in aught-eighteen. Arrrr, lads and lassies, ye best mark yer calendars now ‘n’ start plannin’ yer Finger Foods!
Important Note! Speaking of Finger Food, we will again this year have a Secret Operative sampling the dishes and Assigning Points! Yummiest Dish wins a $25 credit, and Yummiest-Looking Dish wins a $15-dollar credit! Let’s see if Competition really does improve Quality!
Wine Club News
These days most of you are Wine Club members, and already buy our wines tax-free (8.7% discount over our Usual Low Prices!), as well as paying only $5 for our five-wine tasting flight (a $20-$30 value in your average restaurant), compared to $10 for non-members. This is a Reminder that all Wine Club memberships expire at the end of each calendar year! In order to keep enjoying Membership Savings through 2018 you must renew your membership. Also, the rising costs of wine demand that in order to continue our Generous Pours, we are raising the wine club membership fee for 2018 from $35 to $50 to close the Gap a bit on our expenses.
The Good News is that to make all of this more Palatable, if you are a current wine club member and buy any mixed case of wine before December 31, you can renew your membership for 2018 for the old rate of $35. Think about it! And while you’re at it, Consider that we have just Replenished our Stock of Theo’s Chocolate, including delicious bars, Almond Butter Cups, and Chocolate Coconut Clusters!
Mar a Lago Update: Trickle-Down 4.0
When it comes right down to it, Republicans have only ever had Three Goals: Making the Rich richer; Convincing Themselves that Being Rich is their Birthright; and Convincing the Masses that They are in Danger and Only Republicans can Save Them. But since most people are Not rich, the challenge has always been about selling Point #3 while Dissembling about Points #1 and #2. Back in the 50’s there was a weekly TV series called “Racket Squad,” about Con Men (and Women) who could “Pat you on the Back with one hand while Picking your Pocket with the other” (as the old narrative explained before each episode).
So this week after Years in the Making, Republikaners managed to pass the latest version of the same Trickle-Down, Supply-Side (“Build it in the 3rd World, they will Buy it in America”), Economics that didn’t work for Reagan, didn’t work for Bushes I or II, and will not work now.
Eight years ago these same policies led to what Bush Treasury Secretary Ben Bernanke recently called “the worst financial crisis in global history,” which unfolded on his watch under W, who handed it all off to Obama on his first day in office. I mean, really, can you Imagine stepping into That? As you all recall, unemployment went above 10%, much higher for some communities. Peoples’ savings disappeared by the Trillions. Banks threw millions of people out of their homes to pad their Bottom Lines. The financial industry caused the crisis and then found ways to Skim Profit and Trickle Down Catastrophic Losses to Ordinary People. Bernanke ( then in the Obama Cabinet) followed the Keynesian wisdom to use government spending and tax cuts to stimulate demand for products and services, which in turn increased the demand for investment and labor. Given the size of the Hole the entire world economy was in, those policies worked slowly but effectively.
However, those are NOT the fiscal policies to use when the economy is already running at close to the nearly full employment we have crawled back to over the last 8 years. In our current situation, most economists predict that stimulating demand with tax cuts to the middle class will only push prices up, that cutting taxes will only increase deficits, and that cutting taxes for corporations will translate only into higher dividends for stockholders and higher executive salaries, not Bold New Investments in American Infrastructure. Time will tell.
This week’s wine tasting
Ruffino Prosecco Italy $13
Crisp, clean and delicate with fine bubbles; fragrant and intensely fruity with clean notes of apples, pears and citrus with hints of hawthorn, wisteria and elder. Pleasant aftertaste of apples and peaches.
Ruffino Rose Prosecco Italy $13
Elegant and stylish Italian sparkling wine made primarily from the Glera grape, blended with Pinot Noir. The Glera grape gives the wine structure and body, and the Pinot Noir provides the wine with a beautiful rose hue. Its extra-dry style makes it easy to enjoy.
Corte Gordoni La Fontane Bardolino ’12 Italy $14
60% Corvina for structure, weight and a sour-cherry aroma; 30% Rondinella for fresh, herb flavor in a polished, beautifully scented and silky wine with pure red-berry flavors and a mildly spicy finish.
Castano Solanera Vinas Viejas ’13 Spain 92pts $14
Monastrell, Cab, Grenache from high-elevation limestone soils; dense purple color, a big sweet kiss of blueberry and blackberry fruit mixed with crushed chalk, full-bodied mouthfeel, beautiful purity, density and richness with lavish fruit.
Chateau la Croisille ‘Silice’ Malbec ”15 France $19
Plots located on the Luzech limestone plateau, more precisely on terroirs made of iron-rich siliceous red clays, aged one year in neutral oak, yielding a wine that is both rustic and polished.
lummi island wine tasting december 15 ’17
(note: some photos will enlarge when clicked)
Bread Friday
Pain au Levain – Made with a nice mix of bread flour and freshly milled whole wheat and rye flours. After building the sourdough and mixing the final dough it gets a long cool overnight ferment in the refrigerator. This really allows the flavor to develop in this bread. A great all around bread – $5/loaf
Semolina w/ Fennel & Raisins – A levain bread made with bread flour, semolina and some fresh milled whole wheat. A little butter for a tender crumb and fennel seeds and golden raisins round out the flavors. Judy A. says this is her favorite! These flavors go really well with meats and cheese, but it also makes pretty darn good toast – $5/loaf
For pastry this week:
Individual Cinnamon Rolls – Made with a rich sweet roll dough full of eggs, butter and sugar. The dough is rolled out, spread with pastry cream and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. Then rolled up and sliced into individual rolls for baking. And boy are they delicious!!– 2/$5.
Holiday Season Schedule
- Friday, December 22- open 4-7 for both wine tasting and bread pickup, Janice hosting
- Saturday, December 23- closed
- Friday, December 29- open 4-7 for wine tasting and bread pickup
- Saturday, December 30- open 2-6 for wine tasting as usual
- Sunday, December 31- 12th annual East Coast New Year’s Eve Party 7-9 pm (see below)
12th annual East Coast New Year’s Eve Party!
As the Fortunate Few well know, our annual “East Coast New Year’s Eve Party” is a Hallowed Tradition. From 7-9pm on New Year’s Eve we provide the wine, you bring Something Delicious to share, and when the ball drops in Times Square three hours away, we all hoist our glasses and toast the New Year! The Young at Heart move on to their next party, and we Old Timers can get to bed at a decent hour! We welcome this annual opportunity to Thank all of you for your support this year, and to toast ahead to even more fun in aught-eighteen. Arrrr, lads and lassies, ye best mark yer calendars now ‘n’ start plannin’ yer Finger Foods!
Important Note! Speaking of Finger Food, we will again this year have a Secret Operative sampling the dishes and Assigning Points! Yummiest Dish wins a $25 credit, and Yummiest-Looking Dish wins a $15-dollar credit! Let’s see if Competition really does improve Quality!
Holiday Wine Sale
Somehow once again the end of the calendar year is Upon Us. For some of us that means that Taking Inventory is also Imminent, as well as an Uncertain schedule for the next couple of months. Therefore it’s a good time for us to Reduce Inventory and for You to Stock Up for the Winter!
These days most of you are Wine Club members, and so already buy our wines tax-free (8.7% discount over our Usual Low Prices), as well as paying only $5 for our five-wine tasting flight, compared to $10 for non-members. HOWEVER, all Wine Club memberships expire at the end of the calendar year, and rising costs demand that we raise the wine club membership price for 2018 from $35 to $50. The Bottom Line is that wines keep getting more expensive, our pours are generous, and we are in the Red on club tastings.
So. To make all of this more Palatable, if you are a current wine club member and buy any mixed case of wine before December 31, you can renew your membership for 2018 for $35. Think about it! And while you’re at it, Consider that we have just Replenished our Stock of Theo’s Chocolate, including delicious bars, Almond Butter Cups, and Chocolate Coconut Clusters!
Mar a Lago Update: Hypocrisy is the New Pragmatism
As we go to press, Dark Lord McConnell and Zealous Apprentice Ryan are launching their newly designed Death Star on an Unsuspecting Galaxy. Under the auspices of Tax Reform (finger quotes), and Widely Portrayed in the Tried and Untrue Republican Metric of “Returning Hard-Earned Tax Dollars to our Beloved Workers,” they will now Raid the Public Treasury yet again to line the pockets of the .1 %, themselves, and their Corporate $upporters.
Our hats are off to them this time (but our middle fingers are still extended), for adding a Bold New Level of Cynicism to the Old Recipe. It is in fact a Stroke of Dark Genius to offer Permanent Tax Cuts to Corporations and the Top Tier while building near-term Sunset Clauses into the middle-income tax cuts so they will self-destruct after a couple of carefully timed Election Cycles. “There is No Way,” they snicker, “that those Dummies will remember to Blame Us!”
The one Bright Note in all of this is the Astonishing Electoral Victory of Doug Jones in Alabama…Wow! If McConnell ever allows Jones to take his Seat in the Senate (don’t hold your breath) maybe it would slow the rate at which Things Keep Getting Worse. That would be a Great Improvement, because for the Past Year things have been Getting Worse Faster than we are Getting Older, and it would be, you know, a Relief to Slow that Down a bit. I mean Really, we can only take So Much!
This week’s wine tasting
Masia Parera Brut Reserva Cava Italy $13
Delicate perlage, deep minerality, and intoxicating white flower and baby mushroom aromas make this wine memorable
and delightful.
Palama Salento Bianca Verdeca ’16 Italy $11
Refreshing, flavorful, and aromatic, with notes of lemon zest, salty minerality, and green herbs.
Perazzeta Mercurio Rosso Toscana Italy $12
Sangiovese, cab sauv, alicante blend from Maremma; Dark notes of prune, cherry, soft leather, and Italian herbs over a bright acidic backbone. Craves meat and fat!
Sallier de la Tour Nero d’Avola Sicilia ’15 Italy $13
A friendly wine from a soothing grape; aged partly in wood and partly in steel, showing youthful freshness and fruitiness, with enticing notes of spices and liquorice.
Zenato ‘Alanera’ Rosso Veronese Italy $15
Dark, inky color; rich and focused nose, with ripe berries, dusty oak and a precise note of waxy vanilla bean. On the palate delivers extracted flavors of cherries, strawberry, clay and even a hint of crushed mint. Soft tannins, rounded finish.
lummi island wine tasting december 8 ’17
(note: some photos will enlarge when clicked)
No Bread this week
With apologies to Our Faithful, your Baker is Away this week. She will be in touch with the mailing list on Sunday about next week’s bread offerings. If you haven’t saved any in the freezer, you might (gasp!) have to buy a commercial loaf to tide you over.
New Art Show
Last weekend we installed our Winter show, with some new watercolors by Meredith Moench. It is always fun to see how our artists develop from year to year, both in style, skill, and subject matter. Here are two examples of a new (to our eyes) bright look in Meredith’s work…looks like something here about putting the “Wild” into Wild Flowers…quite captivating. Be sure to take time to look at these new works…you will probably want to take one home with you!
Gender Truth and Reconciliation
We seem to be in the midst of a Cultural Revolution here in America. Civilizations by and large don’t seem to have done much to protect women’s rights since Writing was invented about 5000 years ago. According to some accounts, that’s when God told Dominant Males they They had Been Chosen to Exercise God’s Will on Earth, including Dominion over anyone Less Powerful. Therefore human history is pretty much the story of Dominant Males coming up with all kinds of reasons why everyone else’s Stuff is really Theirs, and how God wants Them to kill or enslave the Godless Infidels who took their Stuff and take it back, and thus the History of our Species is an endless Unfolding Kaleidoscope of Rationalized Brutality and Cruelty. Or, as we euphemistically refer to it nowadays, “Politics.”
While this Need to Control may very well have once had long-term Darwinian Genetic Advantages for our Emergent Species, in the last few Centuries (a blink of the Evolutionary Eye) it has become (arguably) an Evolutionary Constraint. Despite the creation of the Magna Carta, the UN, the U. S. Constitution, and the World Court, all urging peace and equality, Inevitably, in the Name of God, or Country, or Whichever Ancient Book, or Whatever Cause Du Jour, the Dominant Males keep us on a Path to Destruction. Figuring out how to stop them has been the Deep Koan of an Entire Generation.
So with that Perspective we Acknowledge that the Toolbox of the Dominant Male includes Violence toward Everyone and Everything that threatens to limit their Power, and this has Regularly, Thoughtlessly, Selfishly, and Unacceptably fallen on the least powerful in every culture and society: women, children, the poor, the sick, the minority Others.
Today we find Our Nation entering what might be a Profound Cultural Revolution that will go a long way toward improving Gender Equality. Or, given 50 Centuries of Human History, it might involve the Symbolic Skewering of a few Minor Players, after which the DM’s will quietly Regroup, Consolidate, and Go On as if Nothing Had Happened. Bottom line: just because Gender Justice is a worthy cause doesn’t mean it isn’t being used as a Political Tool by the Party of Dominant Males. Disgracing and unseating Al may be fleetingly satisfying to some women; but it may Way More Satisfying to the DM’s who are always pulling the strings. We shall see. Or as Senator Franken noted today, it is Ironic (and Disturbing) that he has to Go while Trump and Roy Moore remain Invulnerable. I mean, Really, No Wonder the Other Species just Roll Their Eyes when they look at us…!
Mar a Lago Update: Tearing Down the New Deal
Well, folks, it’s late here at the Wine Gallery. So we will leave this topic till next week. Meanwhile, send in your thoughts on it, and don’t forget to come by the Wine Shop this weekend!
This week’s wine tasting
Quails’ Gate Chenin Blanc ’16 Canada
Pale lemon in the glass, honeysuckle, grass, citrus, pear and melon mingle together on the nose. The palate is dry and complex with beautifully balanced acidity, lovely weight and mid-palate texture, along with its characteristic stony mineral note. Great with NW seafood!
Bodegas Ayuso Estola Reserva ’15 Spain $10
Tempranillo/ cab sauv blend; Warm aromas of spices and ripe fruit; wide and round palate, easy drinking, great buy!
Chateau Les Croisille Cahors Malbec “Croizillon” ’15 France $15
100% malbec organically farmed by hand; aromas and flavors of black cherry, saddle leather, blackberry, cocoa and spice.
La Quercia Montepulciano Riserva ’13 Italy $18
100% organic montepulciano from low-yield vines; rich, port-like nose of candied cherries that carry through on the expressive, rich, earthy palate; nice balance of fruit and acidity.
Pomum Shya Cabernet Sauvignon ’12 Washington $35
Slightly porty aromas of black cherry, tar, licorice, wild herbs, cocoa powder and spices. Densely packed and energetic, conveying flavors of dark berries and spicy oak. Serious and persistent boasting very good lift and structure.
2072 Granger Way