lummi island wine tasting october 23 ’15
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Friday Breads (email us to get on the preorder mailing list! )
Poolish Ale Bread- A “poolish” is a process that pre-ferments some of the flour, enhancing flavor and jump starting enzyme activity, in this case using ale with fresh milled whole wheat -$5/loaf.
Buckwheat Rye – About half bread flour and half a mix of whole buckwheat and fresh milled rye flour. The buckwheat lends a great earthy flavor to this artisan bread with a little honey added for sweetness. This is a bread that would be great with cheese – $5/loaf.
Irish Soda Bread Rolls. In honor of our Baker’s recent trip to Ireland, these take great liberties with the traditional soda bread recipe, adding a little rye flour, butter, buttermilk, eggs, orange zest and currants. So maybe not traditional but very delicious – 2/$5.
Picpoul de Pinet
This photo is from a lunch a few years ago in the outrageously picturesque town of Sète on the Mediterranean coast of France. The dish on the bottom of the photo (my side of the table) is moules frites, or mussels and (what else?) French fries! I confess I don’t quite get the connection between the mussels and the fries– I prefer dipping chunks of bread into the broth– but in this recipe there, well, isn’t any broth! And, with nothing in which to dunk the mussels or the bread, having the right wine comes in especially handy. The local choice here is Picpoul de Pinet, an ancient white grape with an upbeat freshness, crisp lemony notes, and mouth-watering acidity. Literally translated as “lip stinger,” Picpoul Blanc has bright acidity and a clean lemony flavor. Think of it as the Southern France answer to northern French Muscadet…oh, and it’s usually very inexpensive!
As we near Halloween, the “cross-quarter day” halfway between fall Equinox and Winter Solstice, with its rich mix of rain identifiers (rain, showers, drizzle, rain at times, slight chance of showers, occasional sun breaks, and all the other Northwest Moisture Euphemisms), there are probably just a few remaining afternoons when you can sit out on the deck munching fresh seafood in the afternoon sun, enhanced by a chilled glass of the perfect white wine for the occasion…Picpoul de Pinet! With its greenish highlights, delicate nose, subtle aromas of acacia and hawthorn blossom, and delicate freshness, not only does it neutralize the salt and iodine in shellfish. It also is surprisingly good with rich cheese and charcuterie!
This weekend we continue working our way through the new batch of Lost River wines that we picked up at the winery in Winthrop during Drydock.This weekend we will feature their “Cedarosa,” a blend of Cab franc and Merlot.
Cab franc has a traditional “supporting” role in red wine blends: in France it is usually blended with cabernet sauvignon and merlot to add dark notes of coffee, chocolate, and truffle that sit behind the more forward notes of the other varietals.
Similarly, most (not all) Washington Cab Franc is also used in blends. And although Washington Cab Franc can be fairly robust, its softer tannins make it a good choice for rounding out the big tannins often found in Washington merlot and cabernet sauvignon. Depending on where it is grown, Washington cab franc can also add notes of wild herbs, black pepper, and dark fruits. In this case, the cab franc dominates, softening the tannic edges of the merlot, and allowing its own distinct nuances to come to the foreground.
Dances with Light
We have posted a fair number of photos of herons, generally seen in a little wetland we pass most days on our midday dog walk. Sometimes the light invites taking a few photos. Some of those times the camera is along, though mostly not. Either way, we are all continually nourished by the natural scenes we encounter here every day.
Combine that with midday doses of Indian Summer and the deepening blue of the autumn sky, and pretty much everything natural comes into bright relief on sunny October afternoons. In this case, the Great Blue was startled into flight by our intrusion, taking off and flying in a low arc toward the sun. Took several photos in a few seconds, not even looking, just hoping for the best, and were rewarded by this majestic sequence.
This week’s wine tasting notes
Ormarine picpoul de penet ’14 France. $8
Yellow-green color; fruity nose with sharp citrus and tropical fruits; firm palate of pear, apple, lime peel, lemon, and an very long, refreshing, minerally finish.
La Rocaliere Lirac Blanc ’13 France $15
Grenache Blanc and Clairette. Subtle, elegant floral aromas of jasmine, honeysuckle, and verbena. Rich and round on the palate, with wonderful notes of fresh citrus.
Casa Contini Biferno Riserva ’09 Italy $12
80% montepulciano, 20% aglianico; wonderfully smooth and balanced, with smoky blackberry, chestnut, and peppery aromas.
Finca el Tesso Tempranillo Spain $10
100% tempranillo from clay and limestone soil in western Spain at 600 meters above sea level, providing cool nights and long growing season where the wines develop a rich, alluring complexity.
Lost River Cedarosa ’12 $25
55% Cab Franc, 45% Merlot; rich and pruny with notes of blackberry, currant, cassis and licorice.
lummi island wine tasting october 16 ’15
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Nope, no bread this Friday either!
We had some hope for the Return of the Loaves this week, but it appears that our Baker is still away, with strong indications she will be back soon. Hopefully those of you on the mailing list will be receiving info on next week’s selections early next week.
In the meantime this is your chance to find out if Man and Woman can live on Wine alone…!
This one moment
Tonight, finishing dinner
Out the window
Profound Autumn sunset…
Rosé on the Edge
As mentioned last week, we just returned from Winthrop with a carload of Lost River wines, and we are pouring two of them this weekend; their latest pinot gris and rosé offerings. The Lost River pinot gris is by far their most popular wine overall, so much so that they have recently acquired additional vineyards to accommodate the demand.
Here at the Gallery it has been a different story. Here, although all of the wines have been appreciated over the years, the Lost River Rosé has been our best seller, to the point that it is the one rosé we often carry well into the fall and early winter, mainly for one particular fan of the wine, but also for die-hard all-season rosé aficionados. Typically a well-crafted blend of merlot and cab franc, it usually has the heft of a Tavel, the bright, crisp palate of Provence, and a hint of sweetness that adds comfort on those cool fall afternoons.
This year it’s very different; by accident or serendipity, a serious quantity of Barbera, a red Italian grape, was inadvertently added to the blend, resulting in a most unusual rosé. Generally speaking, if you drink a rosé in the dark, it is easily mistaken for a flavorful white wine. This one, I think, in the dark could be easily mistaken for a flavorful red wine. Be sure to stop by this weekend; we are looking forward to your reactions!
Debate Stages
Well, let’s see. On the Republican side, the three current front-runners (Trump, Carson, Fiorina) have never held an elected political office. And every time they open their mouths, we can understand why. What is most puzzling is that they have any constituencies at all! I mean, can you imagine any of these people actually holding their Fingers over the Button? Now That is Scary!
But, seriously, we should take a moment to recognize that they are indeed different kinds of Idiots from the other several dozen Contenders for the position, and probably that deserves some exploration into, you know, the many kinds of Stupid that drive Human Politics. On the one hand it’s all Subtle…on the other, it is Quite Profound. Somehow the bizarre things going on on both Right and Left (isn’t it fun to be able to say ” on on”…?), though different, are driven by the same forces.
On the Democratic side, the recent Candidates’ Debate revealed the intensified Polarity that is just lately crystallizing in the Public Eye between the Corporate Right and the Progressive Left. The former is being increasingly exposed as the Charlatan Wizard behind both the Republican and Democratic Curtains, and the latter is emerging as an unlikely and probably hopeless coalition of Tin Man, Lion, Scarecrow, and Refugee Girl (and Toto, too!) just trying to make good their desperate Escape from Kansas.
The surprising result is that, especially with the addition of Bernie Sanders into the debate mix, the entire Democratic discussion is being pushed (for the first time in about fifty years!) to the Left, while the Tea Party Republicans and their Corporate Puppet-masters keep scrambling to get furthest to the Right of each other and finding new ways to wage war on Just About Everyone for Just About Everything.
The emerging Sense of the Moment seems to be that even Big Money can only push the Pendulum so far to the Extreme Right before the sheer weight of its unlikely and untenable position reaches a Maximum, pauses, teeters, and then inevitably begins to accelerate back to the Left, searching for some kind of balance, some kind of Equilibrium. Oh, and, by the way, in a lot of ways the Future of Our Species is On the Line here, and Bernie is right when he keeps emphasizing that Nothing is going to Change unless we all get Mad as Hell and Make them Stop.
Or, as some people say, “May you live in Interesting Times…!”
In times like these, isn’t it a Comfort to have an Understanding Wine Shop where you can hang out with your friends, taste great wines, and postpone thinking about when is the right time to speculate on oceanfront property in Kansas…??
This week’s wine tasting
Lost River Pinot Gris ’14 Washington $14
Aromas of citrus, pear and tropical fruits. Their most popular wine, the crisp acidity is balanced with a small amount of residual sugar.
Lost River Rosé ’14 Washington $14
A long-time favorite here…blended from merlot and cabernet franc, harvested early to preserve crisp acidity and bright notes of strawberry and cherry.
Estezargues Cuvee des Galets ’14 France $10
Grenache, Syrah and Carignan from organic and biodynamic vines, fermented with natural yeast, and bottled without filtration. Explodes with plump juicy berry fruit, liquorice and spice, showing appealing character and freshness.
Marchetti Rosso Conero ’13 Italy $10
All from “free run juice,” yielding enticing notes of exotic spice, vanilla, dried cranberry, and bitter dark chocolate.
Borsao Tres Picos Garnacha ’13 Spain 92pts $15
Fresh cherry, blackberry and incense on the highly perfumed nose. Lush, sweet and broad on the palate, offering fleshy blueberry and floral pastille flavors that turn spicier with air. Closes on a sweet note of spicy oak, with supple tannins and a touch of fruitcake.
lummi island wine tasting october 8 ’15
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Note: NO Bread This Friday!
As many of you know our increasingly famous Baker is off to Ireland for hiking and exploring, no doubt scouring the countryside for more delicious bread recipes. Unofficial Lummi Island Rumors predict Bread will Return by October 16, absolutely, Fer Sher. Or maybe by the 23rd at the latest. You know, “more or less.”
Fortunately we still have a few loaves stashed in the freezer, and hopefully you also have a Backup Plan!
A Walk in the Park
The end of Drydock presented an opportunity for us to head over to Winthrop to Pearrygin Lake, one of our favorite Washington State Parks. We Washingtonians are fortunate not only to live in a beautiful place with an incredibly diverse set of spectacular landscapes, but also to have so much of this natural beauty protected and available for us to visit and enjoy. We all know and appreciate the nourishing contrast between our lush, green, moist (well, usually) west-of-the Cascades environment and the open, semi-arid spaciousness we find east of the Cascades.
This time of year the Park was in full fall color, lots of yellows, greens, and some reds. Skies were sometimes blue and sunny, sometimes gray, and in all cases the landscape embodies a deeply nourishing sense of Space and Quiet. Very soothing. Ahhhhh…..!
It’s the Circular Flow, Stupid!
Day One of beginning Economics talks about the Circular Flow, most basically summarized as “What Goes Around Goes Around.” The “coming around” part we usually hear about depends entirely on the “going around” part. You can explore this for yourself with a simple parlor game. A bunch of people sit around a table. Each one begins with an identical pile of change. When the game begins, everyone passes as little or as much of their change as they like to the right, and keep doing that. At some point the game will stop and everyone will keep whatever they have in front of them. It might be one minute, or five, or ten. So everyone constantly has to decide, as money comes in from the left, how much to keep and how much to pass on.
This simple process evokes interesting insights into ourselves and others, namely, that people have widely varying attitudes about how much is enough, how much they need relative to others to feel Safe, and how important (or not) it is that others have enough to feel Safe.
image credit: “Enso”. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Enso.jpg#/media/File:Enso.jpg
For the last few decades the pathological Need of those who Can Never Get Enough to Feel Secure has driven them to acquire more and more Wealth, change the rules and values that define the World’s economic systems even more in their favor, and this is the most important part– continue to invest their Gigaholdings into schemes to make themselves even richer. Global infrastructure rots, the Environment teeters on collapse, whole nations flee from wars, famine, and Desperation, and well-paid Politicians around the Planet view the Coming End of the World as We Know It with Self-Satisfied Smugness.
A round or two of the game outlined above will reveal the simple antidote to this Civilization-Threatening Egomania: just change the rules so everyone has to keep passing the money along: workers get decent wages, capitalists get decent return, and natural resources are managed sustainably. And no one would have either Too Much or Too Little. I mean, think about it…What a Relief for our Planet, huh…?!
Lost River
Like the Little James Basket Press, which we are also pouring this weekend, the “Nooksack Redd” Bordeaux Blend made by our friends at Lost River Winery in Mazama (we picked up our annual carload of their wines on our way home today…!) is an ongoing blend of successive vintages. Although they have lots of varietals they might add to the blend, it is traditionally limited to a blend of cab, merlot, and cab franc, and as the French have demonstrated over many centuries, these varietals complement each other in all conceivable proportions.
I am always impressed with our annual visits to Lost River, rediscovering the underlying themes that carry from one carefully crafted wine to another: judicious use of oak, an ongoing quest for palate-soothing texture, and careful blending of varietals for a satisfying sense of balance. We will be tasting more of the latest Lost River releases in the coming weeks.
This week’s wine tasting
Whidbey Island Siegerrebe ’13 Washington $16
Reminisent of Spring, this pretty white explodes with aromas of spicy pear and exotic blossoms, followed by flavors of lichee nut, grapefruit, honey and pear. Finishes off-dry, delightful with spicy dishes and shellfish!
Maryhill winemaker’s Reserve White ’14 Washington $12
Flavorful blend of pinot gris, chardonnay, semillon and sauvignon blanc; opens with clean, bright aromas of pear and apple with touches of tangerine, butter and lemon oil.
St. Cosme Little James Basket Press Grenache ’14 France $11
An old favorite from an ongoing solera* with an aromatic nose of cassis, cherry and lavender; rustic Old World style, with a firm mineral spine giving clarity and lift to the dark berry and bitter cherry flavors.
Lost River Nooksack Red Washington $18
An ongoing Bordeaux blend of cab, merlot, and cab franc to benefit the Nooksack River Salmon Enhancement Administration…a very worthy cause, AND it’s DELICIOUS!
Cloudlift Panorama ’12 Washington $26
Enticing aromas of raspberry, cherry, plum and cassis, with scents of roses, mulberry and incense, and balanced flavors of red currant and Rainier cherry.
lummi island wine tasting october 2 ’15
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Note: NO Bread This Friday!
As many of you know our increasingly famous Baker is off to Ireland for hiking and exploring, no doubt scouring the countryside for more delicious bread recipes. That means no bread for the next couple of weeks, beginning this weekend. Rumor has it that bread will return by October 16, or the 23rd at the latest. Of course, here on the Island Truth is a slippery concept, an artfully weighted average of current rumors…stay tuned for updates.
Fortunately we still have a few loaves stashed in the freezer, so we should be able to squeeze by!
Aia Vecchia
As we have mentioned before, there are historically hundreds of grape varietals grown and used to make wine in Italy. There are also twenty wine regions which correspond to the twenty Administrative Districts in the country. And within each of these twenty wine regions there are scores of Denominazioni di origine controllata (DOC’s) and Denominazioni di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG’s ), each of which specifies the varietals that may be used to qualify for each DOC label. For example, to qualify for the DOC Chianti Classico designation, a wine must come from a specific geographic area and must include at least 75% Sangiovese, and at most 10% Canaiolo, 10% of the white wine grapes Malvasia and Trebbiano, and up to 15% of any other red wine grapes grown in the region, such as Cabernet Sauvignon. In Tuscany alone there are thirty-three DOC’s and nine DOCG’s. Multiply that over 20 wine regions, and it gets pretty confusing!
On top of all that, in the last few decades Tuscany has become best known internationally for two major styles of red wine: cherry-noted blends made mostly from Sangiovese, and so-called “Super Tuscan” blends of international varietals, particularly traditional Bordeaux grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Merlot, often with varying amounts of sangiovese in more of an accompanying role. This is exactly the case with this week’s Italian offering on our tasting list, the Lagone Aia Vecchio. Read more
The Pettiness of Human Ego
There are many scenes from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey that remain powerful and iconic almost fifty years later. One which has often come to mind is when the Monolith selects a group of Early Humans for Development. The image that Director Kubrick (and author Clarke) gave us of our Gift of Understanding was a skirmish between two tribes in which Weapons are invented. The apes jump up and down and threaten each other, and Progress happens when one of them picks up a Bone, invents the Club, and starts the Arms Race. Remember? This theme is repeated over and over again in our myths and legends: whatever the time, whatever the circumstances, the Bad Guys are causing Pain and Suffering, and can only be stopped when the Good Guys Overwhelm them by causing MORE Pain and Suffering.
The Trickle-down Truth here is of course that Those People’s Hero is These People’s Beast and Vice Versa. None of the “-isms” are going to save anyone, because all of the “-isms” are at war with other “-isms.” And it is the Nature of “-isms” to be parochial. Each one claims ownership of some little bit of Truth that gives it Power, Authority, and indeed Responsibility to Save Everyone Else by imposing their Truth on them. One of the great Resonant lines that current President Obama used that got a lot of traction was “Yes, we can.” The important usage here is “we,” not “I.” Which brings us to the Problem: as Woody Allen might say, “Why would I ever vote for the kind of person that would Run for Office?” Ideally running for office would be about Service, but more and more it is about Stardom and Persona.
Maybe I’m still wondering– hoping, perhaps– if the Pope’s recent visit to America might possibly get the various Primates of Power to stop jumping up and down waving Bone-Clubs long enough to achieve some dim realization that we are All in Deep Sheet for all kinds of reasons. And, even though they have the intellectual and emotional development of five-year-olds, they are going to have to step up, make the World Safe, stop the killing and destruction, put the “-isms” aside for a few centuries, and apply the Stupendous Wealth of the world toward the preservation of our Planet and all its creatures. How likely is that, do you suppose?
October scenes
This week’s wine tasting
Altarocca Arcosesto Orvieto ’14 Italy $14
A crisp, clean, fragrant white wine (grechetto, procanico, malvasia), bright and sunny with minerally notes of flowers, citrus, and dried fruits that pair well with savory dishes.
Rio Madre Rioja ’13 Spain 90pts $10
Smoky blackcurrant, cherry and violet aromas with good clarity and zesty mineral lift. Juicy and focused on the palate, with bitter cherry and dark berry flavors; Finishes with strong punch, sneaky tannins and lingering berry and floral qualities.
Lagone Aia Vecchio ’12 Italy $14
“Super-Tuscan”blend of Merlot, Cab Sauv, and Cab Franc. Rich and expressive, with aromas of cherry, vanilla, raw beef, and herbs; structured palate of plum, wild berries, and hints of spice, with a long finish that begs for food.
Andeluna Cabernet Sauvignon 1300 ’11 Argentina $11
Deep red colour, spicy aromas with a hint of coffee and mint. Fresh, balanced, structured and silky on the palate. From rich, alluvial soils of the Uco Valley at 4000 feet in the Andes with pockets of stony, sandy, loam and clay soils.
Isenhower Purple Paintbrush ’08 Washington $25
Cab Franc-dominant Bordeaux blend from a single vineyard, aged in seasoned French oak for 13 months. Nose of sage, thyme, olives, crushed blackberries, bing cherries, black plums, and black currant.
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