lummi island wine tasting august 21 ’15
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Friday Breads (sign up for preorder list! )
Italian Walnut, Golden Raisins & Honey – Made with an italian preferment called a biga. About half of he flour ferments overnight which to enhance flavor and develop gluten. Uses about 30% fresh milled whole wheat and lots of toasted walnuts and golden raisins with a little honey .– $5/loaf.
Le Pave d’autrefois- “Old paving stones,” a sourdough multi-grain bread from bread flour, whole wheat, rye , and buckwheat flours. The dough doesn’t hold a loaf shaped, so is just cut into pieces. – $5/piece
Chocolate Babkas: Yummy sweet rolls rich with eggs and butter, rolled out and spread with chocolate before baking. – 2/$5.
It’s back! La Rocaliere Tavel Rosé
We have mentioned frequently our fondness for La Rocaliere, a little winery in the Lirac region of France, a bit west of Avignon. Like many wineries in Lirac (there aren’t that many), La Rocaliere also makes wine from the neighboring region of Tavel, where rosé is the only wine permitted. To keep it a rosé and yet retain some color the juice must be removed from the skins after a short period of contact time.
In Tavel, the contact time with the skins is longer than in many other appellations, making Tavel rosé darker in color than other rosés, with more structure, tannins, and aging potential. Or as some people (you know who we mean) might say, “Tavel is the absolute shiznit of rosés!” Well, we certainly think so, having visited this winery a couple of times, and we always look forward to this particular rosé each summer. And it’s here now!
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Waitsburg Cellars
Waitsburg winery is a collaboration between wine writer Paul Gregutt and mega wine marketing giant Precept Wine. Waitsburg is a tiny town resting quietly east and north of Walla Walla out on the Palouse, while Gregutt has long been known to Washingtonians for his “Wine Adviser” column in The Seattle Times. His book, Washington Wines and Wineries: The Essential Guide, is considered a definitive resource on Washington wine. Wiaitsburg Winery came about when Precept offered him access to its “big box of crayons,” as he puts it, which roughly translates to “we have all these vineyards, see what you can make from them.” Would that be fun, or what??? I mean, why doesn’t anyone ever ask us that question??
A number of wines have manifested from this project. The one we are pouring this weekend is called “Three,” which is a multiple play on words. It is made from three red grapes with names beginning with “M”: merlot, malbec, and mourvedre, i.e., two cool climate Bordeaux reds with a big splash of one warm climate Southern Rhone red. Despite our philosophical distaste for giant conglomerates like Precept, we like the creativity in the Waitsburg venture, we relate to Gregutt’s fascination with all things wine, and yes, we like the wines. Be warned, they are definitely New World style, and sometimes that is exactly what the occasion demands. Pretty tasty stuff– come by and check it out!
The World on Fire
Let’s face it, it’s a disturbing archetypal concept: “The World’s on Fire!” I first heard the phrase when I was maybe seven or eight years old, in Maine. Our street had a steep hill at one end, so in Winter traffic was blocked, making a great place for sledding, as people from Elsewhere seem to call it, or “sliding,” as we called it. On this particular occasion, the sky was already dark (it was Winter, so maybe five o’clock in the afternoon!), and there was a reddish glow in the sky. Not sunset, something else. And my sister said “The World’s on Fire!”
Well. That’s a pretty Heavy Idea for an eight-year-old, right? But I tried to wrap my head around it, or as some prefer to visualize, “wrap it around my head,” with no particular success, leaving a long-lingering Fear about the World Catching Fire. You know, like, “Nowhere to Run To, baby…Nowhere to Hide!” as I believe Martha and the Vandellas put it some years later.
So slow forward to Right Now, and the Great Global Warming Drought that is manifesting around the planet and in particular on the West Coast of what we currently know as North America, and the tinder-like dryness and the Heat, and yes, the Fires. Right at this moment huge forest fires are raging in the North Cascades near Mazama, Winthrop, and Twisp, as well as all around Lake Chelan, to the point that there aren’t enough resources to keep fighting them. Firefighters are exhausted and injured, and some have died trying to save forests and communities. It’s a kind of Hell out there, some kind of razor-edged, spear-pointed Karma.
So yeah, here it is the year we call “aught-fifteen,” and the World is On Fire, and Our Way of Life has lit the matches, and the animals are all running for their lives, while our so-called leaders continue to pretend there isn’t a Problem…? Really?
This week’s wine tasting
Argiolas Costamolino Vermentino 2014 Italy $13
From hillside vineyards in Sardinia with mild winters, limited rainfall, and very hot and windy summers. Hand-selected grapes, using only very light first pressing. Typical notes of papaya, passion fruit, flowers, and honey, with clean, mineral notes.
la Rocaliere Tavel Rose ’14 France $13
Scents of dark berries, cherry and licorice, with a floral accent. Firm and structured, displaying cherry and floral pastille flavors and a hint of bitter herbs, finishing with good power and length.
Borsao Garnacha ’13 Spain $9
Expressive aromas of blackberry, licorice and and fruitcake aromas; Juicy, spicy and supple, sweet, red and dark berry flavors; finishes fresh, focused and nicely persistent.
Le Rote Chianti Colli Senesi ’11 Italy $14
Rich, chewy, dark fruit, evolves into a smooth palate with notes of black cherry and sweet tobacco.
Waitsburg ‘Three’ Red ’12 Washington $19
Merlot, Malbec and Mourvedre; Cool aromas of blackberry, redcurrant, tobacco, spices and fresh herbs, complicated by rose petal and hints of licorice and menthol. Moderate density and texture with light dusting of tannins and New World charm.
lummi island wine tasting august 15 ’15
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Reminder: No Friday Bread this week!
Just a reminder your baker Janice is taking the week off for her annual baseball trip with her nieces.
What does that mean to you? Unfortunately it means no bread or treats this Friday! On the other hand, maybe Friday night won’t be so Crazy, and some of you will come on Saturday this week!
Avignonesi
About five years ago we were in Tuscany for a few weeks, exploring hilltop towns, wineries, and vineyards. On a whim one day we made a fairly long drive to visit the Avignonesi winery, located in on beaufiful hillside a few miles east of the town of Montepulciano. The location and its iconic trees were stunning, and all the wines were delicious! We have carried several Avignonesi wines since then, although their Washington distributor has changed several times, making the wines difficult to find.
We are happy to report that the latest distributor has been found, and last week we were treated to a lovely tasting of a number of the latest releases. This weekend we will be pouring the Avignonesi Cantaloro, a “Super-Tuscan” blend of 50% cabernet sauvignon, 40% merlot, and 10% sangiovese. The name “Super-Tuscan” was coined a few decades ago when a few high-end Italian producers challenged the strict, long-standing naming and blending protocols that govern which grapes can be used in which regions by blending sangiovese with cab and merlot. Some of those wines are now among the most expensive and sought after in the world. While Cantaloro is not so rarefied, it is a really nice example of why these blends have gained so much popularity. read more
Thinking about Blends
One of the many interesting things about being a potter was mixing glazes. If you have two or three glazes you have used and like, sometimes the question arises, “what would happen if we blended them?” And it’s not as if you can make any useful inference from their individual appearance to what some blend of them would look like fired. After all, firing pottery is like putting a note in a bottle and throwing it in the Ocean…you have no idea how it will turn out until you try it!
One method for exploring glaze blends is called the “tri-axial blend.” You make some sample tiles like these in the photo for example. The tile on each corner is one of your existing glazes. Each side of the triangle shows a blend series between the two end points of the line: 100/0; 80/20; 60/40; 40/60; 20/80; 0/100. The middle three tiles are blends of all three glazes.
Blending wines is pretty much the same process, except it can be a lot more complicated, even when blending different barrels of the same varietal from the same year into the best possible final blend. All of this is to say that when we think about a Bordeaux blend (cab sauv, cab franc, merlot, malbec) or a Rhone blend (syrah, grenache, mourvedre, cinsault), or a Super-Tuscan (cab, merlot, sangiovese), we don’t think much about how the winemaker came up with that blend. And it turns out that, just as with color in glazes, flavors in blends can be incredibly sensitive to small changes in the final blend. Something to think about next time you taste a blend of more than one varietal!
Reuilly
The little wine region of Reuilly comprises only about 500 acres of vineyards west of Bourges in the Loire Valley of France, where the primary grapes are sancerre and pinot noir. Our interest goes back to a few weeks ago when we were discussing the somewhat arcane topic of “nervosité.” The concept is nicely capsulized in this quote from Kermit Lynch: “If you want to experience minerality, notice the first impression on the palate, which is of fresh, cushiony, Sancerre-like Sauvignon Blanc. Then, immediately, there is a firmness, a stony firmness that appears from within the wine. Pierres Plates is from a specific vineyard with Chablis-like soil full of chalk, fossils and sea shells, making the fruit lively, with white flower perfumes, citrus and minerally finesse and precision.”
We are feeling the tendrils of Fall in the air these days, which remain hot in the afternoon despite the cool of the evening and the night. This is the perfect time to enjoy a really nice sauvignon blanc, and our first wine this weekend fits the bill perfectly. Whether you call it nervosité or something else, this wine’s combination of flavor, acidity, and minerality fits this time of year perfectly. Yum, mmm, and ahhhhh!
This week’s wine tasting
Reuilly “Pierres Plates” Sauvignon Blanc ’12 France $18
Sage, black currant, gooseberry, and lime dominate both the nose and palate, where a suffusion of salt and chalk adds to a palpable sense of extract and invigoration…bring on the shellfish!
Belle Glos Pinot Noir Blanc ’14 California $16
Pale pink with a copper hue; citrus-driven aromas carry through to bright acidity, a creamy orange note and layers of tart apricot. Great balance of texture, fruit, and minerality.
Montes Twins malbec/cab ’11 Chile $7
Richness and fruit from the Cab, and smooth, velvety texture from the Malbec add up to vibrant acidity and integrated layers of plum skin, blueberry, and blackberry flavors and soft tannins.
Tarima Hill Monastrell ’11 Spain 91pts $13
Complex, perfumed scents of dark berry liqueur, cola, incense and smoky oak spices. Plush and expansive, with sweet cherry compote and blueberry flavors with notes of floral pastille and bitter chocolate. Rich and lively, finishing with excellent power, smooth tannins and a late jolt of allspice.
Avignonesi Cantaloro ’13 Italy $16
Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Sangiovese; This Super-Tuscan blend offers lovely aromas of red fruits, sweet spices and tobacco, then fresh and supple on the palate, with ripe red cherry and plum flavors lingering softly on the long, smooth, spicy finish.
lummi island wine tasting august 7 ’15
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Friday Breads (sign up for preorder list! )
Barley & Rye with Pumpkin seeds – Sourdough with a mix of barley, fresh milled whole rye, and whole wheat flours with a bit of buttermilk, honey, and toasted pumpkin seeds.– $5/loaf.
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.
Individual brioche tart au sucre – A traditional rich brioche rolled into individual tarts, then topped with demarara sugar, a mixture of cream, eggs, and even more butter. Rich, delightful, and surprisingly light. – 2/$5.
Warm welcome to La Baronne
While the Lignères family’s ties to the wine world can be traced back to the sixteenth century, its modern history began in 1957 when André and Suzette Lignères bought la Baronne Estate, and gradually expanded its vineyard holdings in the Languedoc along the border between the wine regions of Corbieres and Minervois, which roughly follows the main highway between Narbonne and Carcasonne.
I have a particular fondness for this winery from a spontaneous visit there a few years ago. I had read something that intrigued me about the winery, so late one afternoon I drove in with no appointment, and encountered a lone André, a gentleman of my generation, who had turned over the reins to the winery to his son a few years before. Despite my rudeness in dropping in unannounced, André proceeded to pour samples of a number of wines. His English was even worse than my French, but somehow we got along very well, and I continue to be grateful for his gracious hospitality. Btw, he was having a terrible time with a funky old corkscrew, so I sent him one of ours…hope he received it!
I bought several bottles of his wines to bring back, and have been looking for a source for them ever since. Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, when I learned a new distributor now carries these wines, and now we have some! This weekend we are pouring la Baronne Costa Lise, a classic Languedoc blend of carignan, grenache, and syrah. Next week we will pour the old vines Carignan called Piece de Roche, which Really Rings my Wine Chimes!
Read more about the estate on Tom Fiorina’s excellent blog article (we met Tom on the same trip and keep a link to his blog on our site- check it out!)
Dream Time
I learned how to sail in the early sixties when I was a midshipman at the Naval Academy, and found it immediately engaging. For most of the last fifty years I have had a sailboat of one sort or another. For the last dozen years I have co-owned a 32′ boat with a long-time friend, and this year we made the difficult decision to sell the boat. Preparing the boat for sale required a lot of work, and also led to some soul-searching about whether a boat still had a place in our lives.
So the past week has delivered some considerable surprise, excitement, anxiety, smiles, and the occasional philosophical shrug. Just over a week ago our old boat was suddenly sold. A day later, out of curiosity, we drove down to Anacortes to see an unusual little boat we saw on Craigs List, called a Montgomery 23. A couple of years ago we were sailing back from Clark Island when I noticed a small sailboat making tidy progress against the wind and a bit of a chop. Later research revealed it was something called a, you guessed it, Montgomery 23.
Seriously, we just wanted to take a look, the beginning of an open-ended shopping excursion that had not even established an objective. All you need to know right now is that the boat is called “Dream Time.” She was built in 1979, but was substantially rebuilt over the last ten years. Somehow we said “Yes!” and this afternoon we sailed her up here to Lummi Island. And we are both doing a lot of grinning. Bottom line: not quite ready to be without a boat!
Evolution
Somehow it is hard to remember what the wine shop was like BR, you know, “Before Ryan.” I honestly can’t remember if he arrived on the scene two, or three, or four years ago. But we all know he has been a Force for Aliveness and the Founding Energy behind our decision to expand our hours to Friday nights.
As most of you know, over the last few years Ryan has developed his European wine tours, taken over the wine list at the Beach Store Cafe, expanded his wine classes through the Community College and the Food Coop, not to mention his recording business, and generally spread himself down to about four microns trying to Do It All. We all knew that Something would eventually have to give, and the logical First Thing to Give is the one that pays the least.
The Truth is that since we have never made a Profit in our little wine business, we have never been able to pay dear Ryan actual Money for his efforts. Now that he has developed a number of better options, and like all of us, has finite resources, it makes perfect sense that “Somethin’s Gotta Give.”
So it is with the reluctant but inevitable acceptance of Impermanence that we announce that for the foreseeable future Ryan will no longer be your default Friday night host. Like Pat and me, maybe he will prefer dropping in and schmoozing for a time on Fridays, rubbing elbows, enjoying Janice’s bread samples, and coming and going as the mood dictates…!
This weekend’s wine tasting
La Quercia Falanghina ’13 Italy $18
100% Trebbiano from hillside clay soil; a lovely, straw-yellow wine, with rich notes of white flowers, sea salt, and pear.
Perazzeta Rosado di Montalcino ’14 Italy $14
From the same grape as Brunello (sangiovese grosso), this beautiful rosado has it all: rich, bold, flinty, and summery.
Riojanas Rioja Canchales ’11 Spain $12
Pungent red currant and cherry on the nose, with bitter cherry and rose pastille flavors open to deeper blackberry and licorice notes and a taut, youthfully tannic finish.
Grand Bateau Rouge ’12 France $11
75% Merlot, 25% Cabernet Sauvignon; expressive nose of ripe red fruits and spices with an elegant touch of new oak. Harmonious and powerful, with appealing fruit flavors, ripe tannins, and a savory finish.
La Baronne Costa Lise ’12 France $14
Organically grown blend of Carignan, Mourvedre and Syrah from Corbieres; juicy and complex, with luscious, mouth-filling flavors of dark berries and exotic spice.
lummi island wine tasting july 31 ’15
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Friday Breads (sign up for preorder list! )
Walnut Raisin Levain- 30% fresh milled whole wheat and rye with toasted walnuts and dark raisins . – $5/loaf.
Kamut Levain – khorasan wheat is an ancient Egyptian grain with lovely golden wheat berries with a nutty flavor, and leavened with natural starter. -$5/loaf.
Traditional Bagels! Shaped, boiled, topped with seeds, and baked– plain, sesame seed, poppy seed, and mixed; one each per order . – 4 for $5.
This weekend: Cloudlift Cellars Special Tasting
For the past several years, the end of July has brought winemaker Tom Stangeland and his wife Joannie to Lummi Island to celebrate their wedding anniversary, and they have always found time to stop in the wine shop to taste and schmooze about all things wine. Gradually we got to taste a few of his early wines (2013 is only his third commercial vintage!), and I have been very impressed with all of them. In recent years I have even had the opportunity to help out a little with fall crush and spring bottling at the winery in South Seattle. As many of you know, we have carried several Cloudlift wines here in the shop to general enthusiastic acclaim, and I am not shy about saying that these wines all strike a resonant chord with my own palate that sounds something like “Mmmmm!”
So we are very excited to offer Our Faithful the opportunity to taste through five of Tom’s current releases this weekend. Since this is their anniversary, don’t expect that he will be here during all open hours Friday and Saturday, but it is likely he will be in the shop for an hour or two in the middle of our open hours to tell you (in great detail if you like!) about his wines and the Craftsman philosophy that he brings to them.
Our Summer Island
I have been living in these parts for, let’s see, forty years now. Not a long time, geologically speaking. The Blink of an Eye. Certainly, one would think, not enough time to change an Entire Global Climate. Yet across these forty years, this is the first year that we have had what the rest of the country calls “Summer,” though it has been getting noticeably warmer and drier for a few years now. So Something is definitely Afoot. And while this “summer” thing is on some levels quite enjoyable, on the Climate Change Channel it is increasingly disturbing. First comes, “Wow, this is So Nice!” and then another part of us thinks,“Wait a minute…where ARE we?” because we have never seen it be this Hot, or this Dry, and every year it seems to be getting More So.
We did get a little rain last week, and with it a small but welcome sense of Relief for the worrying Spirit, and a little Color back to the landscape. We worry about Fires, and about our flora and fauna getting enough to drink. We worry about the future of salmon fishing everywhere but particularly right out front in Legoe Bay. Last year warm water drove almost all the returning fish north of Vancouver Island, and our local reefnetters were pretty much shut out. Now it seems even hotter, and yes, the boats are launched and in position again, but now it all seems fragile and tentative. Still beautiful, still a great place to be, this Island, this World. But the more we look around lately the more some part of us thinks: “We Really need to start taking better care of this place– Immediately!”
Reefnet rigs in early morning light– ready for salmon that may not come this way– or Any Way– much longer
Great Blue in the Slough knows how to make do…seven million years of adaptation practice
These hydrangeas next door are absolutely irridescent about the heat…
Sunset skies have been unusually cloudless
This week’s wine tasting featuring wines from Cloudlift Cellars
Cloudlift Updraft ’13 Washington $18
Bordeaux-style blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon; aromas of apple blossom, mango, papaya, and lime; flavors of Bosc pear and juicy tropical fruit leading to a palate-cleansing rush of citrus acidity.
Cloudlift Rosé ’14 Washington $14
100% Cabernet Sauvignon; nose of fresh ripe strawberries with a touch of citrus that continues on the slightly off-dry palate, followed by a long, crisp finish.
Cloudlift Ascent ’12 Washington $27
80% cab franc, 18% merlot, 2% petit verdot; aromas of black cherry, dark strawberry, sweet herbs and notes of minerality; light and silky mouthfeel with flavors of black cherry, cocoa powder and crushed herbs with bright acidity and hints of toasted almond on the finish.
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.
Cloudlift Stratus ’12 Washington WE 93pts $32
85% PetitVerdot, 15% merlot; brings aromas of fresh and dried herbs, pencil lead, mocha, potting soil and flowers; in the mouth shows rich coffee and cherry notes backed by exceptionally integrated tannins and a lingering finish.
2072 Granger Way