lummi island wine tasting november 15, ’14
This Week’s Breads
Janice brings a basket of fresh-baked bread for sale each Friday afternoon shortly after 4pm. All breads are first come first served.
This week:
— Hearty Country Hearth Bread with toasted pumpkin seeds –mmm, delicious! $5/loaf
—Multi-grain Cranberry Walnut Bread– made with buckwheat and whole wheat flours, dried cranberries and toasted walnuts – turkey sandwich anyone? – yum! $5/loaf
Be sure to stock up this week, cuz no bread for the next TWO WEEKS! Next “Bread Friday” will be Friday December 5th!!
Green Ketch update
The three-foot hole in her side has been repaired, and she has been drawn in higher on the shore somewhat in the shelter of Lovers’ Bluff. It may be some time until engine power is restored, and we have received no updates. We can tell you that she is sitting Very Close to the spot on the beach where the Happy Jack spent many quiet years before being carved up into car-sized chunks and hauled away Somewhere. The Green Ketch (aka “Ning Ning”) is a long way from home and needs a lot of work. So maybe she will just lie here for the winter and then we’ll see.
We worry that, like the old cars that we can’t seem to part with, and which will probably never run again, she could settle into the landscape for a decade or two, waiting for rescue. Still, she’s pretty solid, and we continue to hope her lads will sail her away yet.
Longing for something to Yay about
As nearly as I can tell, what I am calling “yaying” became extinct when I turned about 12, maybe even before, and that was way back in the mid-fifties. Here’s how it worked. It’s early Saturday afternoon, any time of year. A gang of neighborhood kids walks en masse downtown to one of the local movie theaters (there were only four). There was usually a Newsreel, often a Cartoon, and then a main feature, often a Western featuring Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy, or even Audie Murphy (the soft-spoken, real-world war hero). And of course there were lots of war movies, also.
Now I know it is hard for the four of you who occasionally read this blog to imagine a world in which TV was still a novelty, and home video players were the stuff of science fiction. The point here is that each Saturday, given the adventurous nature of the films, and given that we were kids and could still allow our imaginations to get us excited, there were always a few scenes in each movie in which the hero, (or the actual Cavalry!) would show up just in the nick of time to save The Girl or the Hapless Scapegoat from the cruel plans of the Bad Guys in general and the Really Bad Guy in particular. Inevitably, each time such a moment arrived (sometimes actually accompanied by a bugler playing “Charge!”) the entire theater would erupt in a deafening “YAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY!!!!! (click on the image and turn on your sound for a half-hearted imitation of what it was like)
Unfortunately right now feels like one of the Darker Moments in our history, for a lot of reasons, including the recent “Best Election that money could buy,” the Drug Traffickers in Mexico, the Fanatics in the Middle East (yes, including Israel), the bankers owning Everything, Climate Change putting the Entire Future up for grabs, Democrats who act like Republicans, Republicans who act like Idiots…in sum, the World Gone Crazy. So the tiny point of this rant is, yeah, I long for the simple days when here in our Darkest Hour the Cosmic Cavalry would come charging over the hill, bringing with them Justice, Peace, Hope, Community, and Mutual Respect, and we would all stand on our seats and yell with all our hearts, “YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY!!!!!
sad sigh…
November Ducks
Given the small rant above (I’ve been under a lots of stress lately), sometimes the best we can do is take comfort in the small glories of Everyday Life. Most days find us walking the dogs from our place down to Legoe Bay. Most of the year there is a group of Mallards (three pairs) resident in the little slough along Legoe Bay Road south of Tuttle. I don’t know enough about them to know if the same families are year-round residents (please post a comment if you know) or if there is a parade of transients. What I do know is that their life is appealing– a little paddling, a little browsing, a little sticking your head in the water and your tail in toward the sky, a little munching, a little napping…hey, even an occasional spin around the joint on wing! All in all, a pretty good life, and all in all, a pretty good reminder that we are so very lucky to be here in this place and, like our feathered friends, have each other and this lovely pond to swim in.
comforted sigh…
You sing, we pour
It has been very slowly evolving as a “policy.” But like starfish wars, it has been So Slow that unless you see it in ultra slo-mo, it’s hard to tell anything is going on at all. But every once in a while, a musician will stop by the wine shop, and at some point in the conversation will offer to go out to the car and get an instrument and play music for awhile.
It turns out that because of all the hard surfaces in the shop the acoustics are excellent. Of course, this has been clear to all of us for a long time, because generally somewhere between 10 and 14 people in the space the ambient conversational noise level makes conversation impossible. Yes, that’s right, the act of conversation makes conversation impossible. But that’s another story.
The point here is that friend and occasional wine shop visitor Paul came by in late afternoon on Sunday, near the close of Studio Tour, with his lovely Martin D28 guitar (which, I confess, I DO covet!), and offered to play a few tunes. As always, we were delighted, because when everyone is listening and not talking, live music sounds very, very good in our little space. The downside of our acoustic situation is that when ten or more people are talking at once, conversation is essentially impossible! All of this is to say that we encourage performers of all persuasions and talents to bring your stuff by. We are always happy to trade a full tasting for two for a 20 minute performance (longer if you want!).
This Week’s Wine Tasting
Domaine Girard Chardonnay ’12 France $13
Medium to full bodied with fleshy notes of fresh-picked apples and pears; no oak, but spends time on the lees to give it richness; clay soils at a higher elevation impart a delightful freshness.
Renegade Red ’12 Washington $10
Blend of mostly Cab Sauv, Merlot, and Cab Franc; shows lots of red and black fruits, scents of loamy minerality, and fine grained tannins that are matched with balanced acidity.
Atalaya Laya ’12 Spain $10
70% Garnacha and 30% Monastrell; Cassis, blueberry, pungent herbs and mocha aromas lead to an open-knit palateof fresh cherry, dark berry, and a hint of black pepper and a subtle floral note.
Renaudie Tradition ’11 France $16
Côt and Cab Franc; aromas of cherries, blackcurrant, and dark fruit with fine, silky tannins.
William Church Bishop’s Blend ’10 Washington $18
Cab-dominant Bordeaux blend with a splash of Grenache; lush and round with notes of grenadine, black cherry, sweet tobacco and forest spice.
lummi island wine tasting november 8 ’14 winter studio tour
This Week’s Breads
Janice brings a basket of fresh-baked bread for sale each Friday afternoon shortly after 4pm.
This week:
–Italian walnut with a hint of rosemary;
–Breton Bread which includes buckwheat and rye flours – awesome with cheese and coldcuts.
Whatever the recipes of the day, after 4:30 or 5:00 the pickings often get slim…be warned!
Studio Tour Artists
This weekend we continue with our showing of recent works by Anne Gibert, plus adding some new works by Meredith Moench. We will be open for wine tasting Friday from 4-7, Saturday and Sunday from 1-6 pm.
Two sides to every story
For the dinner table on Sunday Pat picked a bouquet of hydrangeas down the street. Not only were they lovely and exotic, but the difference in coloring from different angles makes them seem two entirely different plants. Our weather continues to be unseasonably mild though quite wet. The occasional sunbreaks are a relief and a treat, and the lingering echoes of a long and lovely summer still show in the landscape around us. Though the weather has been very pleasant much of the past year, in another sense it has been so weird for so many months that it definitely heightens concerns about our climate future.
As the old teaching goes, “Things are not as they seem……nor are they otherwise.”
Green Ketch Afloat!
For the past few weeks we have been following the fate of the Green Ketch, which spent much of the summer anchored in Legoe Bay, and which broke away from her mooring two weeks ago and got stranded on shore, unfortunately perched on her side against the concrete ramp used for launching reefnet rigs. There the waves were relentlessly making the small hole in her side bigger and bigger, which prompted the heroic mobilization of Island volunteers to move her south to better shelter and a friendlier beach.
Yesterday we noticed she was again afloat, her two young crewmen Bud and Kyler busily pumping our water after having spent much of the night patching her cement hull. They were as surprised as anyone that she was floating, and concerned that pressure on their cement patchwork would open up. But today she was still afloat, and presumably last night they continued the repair on the inside part of the hole, reinforcing the work they did the night before. They turn out to be resourceful and committed to getting the boat back to her home anchorage in Olympia. Almost certainly they will need to do a lot of electrical system replacement before the engine will work again, but we are betting they will make it happen. Arrrr, fair winds to ye, lads, and an easy, followin’ sea…!
Mah jong Ladies
As I have often mentioned, my Thursday evening blogging coincides with the weekly meeting of the Local Neighborhood Ladies Weekly Mah Jong Time-Out Time. This is an unlikely group pursuing an unlikely activity in an unlikely place, and it has been going on for some years now. Tonight I had to take time out to shoot a few photos of the new paintings that Meredith just installed this afternoon (see above) and found this unruly crowd. Depending on the season, and who is around and available any particular Thursday night it seems to vary from three or four to, in this case, seven.
I have gotten the impression that one of the attractions is that there is no agenda and no objective except to step away from the mundane demands of daily life, share wine and conversation, and yes, play this ancient game, although everyone knows nothing at all is at stake.
So this is a good lesson for all of us, to remind ourselves many times a day: “Nothing Ultimate is at stake here…!”
This Week’s Wine Tasting
Marchetti Tenuta de Cavaliere Verdicchio ’13 Italy $16
Full-bodied, with lush pear, melon, and a touch of honey; a little off-dry, with an extra month on the vine to develop greater body, structure, and fruit essence; deftly made, with beautiful acidity. Lovely!
Marchesi del Salento nero d’avola ’13 Italy $9
no notes available…but hey, I must have liked it for some reason!
Borsao Garnacha ’12 Spain $9
Inky purple. Aromas and flavors of blueberry, blackberry and bitter cherry are brightened by peppery spices. Concentrated and velvety in texture, with good finishing breadth and cling. An outstanding value.
Domaine Girard Malepere Rouge ’12 France $14
An easy-drinking Bordeaux blend of Cabernet Franc and Merlot; vines are 17 years old; harvesting is manual and totally destemmed; soils are mainly clay and silt, with some gravels.
Matthews Blackboard Red ’12 Washington $18
Aromas of strawberry, plum and chocolate. Silky and pliant on entry, concentrated and seamless in the middle, with plum and spicecake flavors complicated by vanilla and cola notes, finishing with soft tannins and moderate grip.
lummi island wine tasting november 1 ’14
This Week’s Breads
Janice brings a basket of fresh-baked bread just just as we open each Friday shortly after 4pm.
This weekend:
— Light rye with caraway seeds – (think Reuben sandwich!)
— Golden polenta with dried cranberries
Rumor has it that Janice’s breads will be featured in the next incarnation of the Beach Store Cafe, reopening soon under new, Island-friendly management. I can tell you that Ryan is helping set up the wine list and server wine training, that many of the wines will be pleasantly familiar to our regulars, and that you will probably be able to buy a decent bottle to have with your dinner. We do remind our members, however, that it will continue to be to your advantage to buy a nice bottle from us and pay the modest corkage fee to have it with your dinner at the Cafe. I’m just saying…! In any case, after a month without a restaurant, we are all looking forward to having it open again!
Special Hours on Saturday
Please note we will not open till 3pm this Saturday so we can attend the Memorial for our friend and Wine Club member Lee McCollum. We press our palms together and bow in gratitude for having known him, and with sorrow for his loss.
Murphy and the Green Ketch. cont’d
With apologies for dwelling on a subject, there is something so tragic and yet so inevitable about the ongoing (albeit at a very slow pace) saga of the Green Ketch, which we mentioned last week. The day after our post, stalwart volunteers mounted an energetic attempt to move the boat to what they hoped would be a more benign situation at the SE corner of Legoe Bay…you know, where the Happy Jack spent many years rusting in peace before being hauled away in chunks last Spring.
It has been reported that the effort involved a lot of muscle, a sturdy tractor, lines through blocks set offshore, and the like. Given the many unexpected obstacles, however, by the time the Ketch had been drawn close to the desired safe perch, the Tide had receded too far, and she was left stranded much further from shore than had been planned.
Every sailor of experience has learned many times the inevitability of Murphy’s Law: “Anything that Can go Wrong will go Wrong…and at the Worst possible time. ” This is an important point for you non-sailors out there, who may only be familiar with the first part. Because to Really understand how Murphy’s Law operates, you must have a firm grasp of the “worst possible time” part of the Law.
Personal experience suggests the existence of several additional corollaries: 1) Murphy always shows up when you least expect it, and b) things go wrong in an exponentially cascading sequence.
It is particularly disturbing when the salvage attempt turns out to make things Worse. But that’s Murphy for you.
Wander Brewery
Week before last on a quiet Saturday afternoon we had the pleasure of meeting the owners of Bellingham’s newest brew-pub, Chad and Colleen. They opened their place in a hangar-like warehouse on Dean Street, in the little industrial area south of Bellingham High School, last Spring.
Since today Is Pat’s birthday, we took the opportunity to visit the brewery. We are happy to report that there are about 10 brews at any one time, and we tried them all in two rounds of samples. Though they serve no food, they have arranged for a different Food Truck to be at their place each day they are open. Unfortunately, today they had a last minute cancellation, and we had to hustle over to Taco Lobo for some takeout to bring back. All you need to know is that Chad is an Artist who makes Beautiful brews, and we highly recommend a visit!
Lambrusco Rosé
For those of us of a certain age, the word “Lambrusco” conjures memories of consistently unpleasant sparkling wines of our youth. Not only were we young and inexperienced; in fact the Lambruscos that made it to our shores and our parties were quite often sappy-sweet and not particularly pleasant.
Slow-forward to today’s global, educated wine market, and it’s time to take another look at what Lambrusco can be. There are two versions, a sweet version (Amabile) and a dry version (Secco). Like other dry sparkling wines, Lambrusco goes well with lots of dishes because of its festive bubbles, palate-cleansing acidity, and subdued and adaptable flavor profile, which can be fruity, floral, or both.
Lambrusco is apparently quite an ancient wine, mentioned by Virgil, Pliny, Cato, and Strabo. No one knows what those wines tasted like, but in more recent centuries a steady stream of poets have sung its praises.We have occasionally carried dry Lambrusco, but this is our first dry rosé version. Come by and check it out!
This Week’s Tasting
i Quercioli Lambrusco Rose Italy $10
A lovely dry and sparkling Rose with pie cherries, huckleberries and aromas of strawberries and fresh herbs. Nice mousse and clean finish
Feraud Cotes du Rhone 11 $14
Dark berries and cherry pit on the pungent nose; slight jamminess and a hint of cracked pepper to its extroverted berry fruit. Juicy and focused, with supple tannins and a lingering herbal note.
Olivares Monastrell Altos de la Hoya ’11 Spain 91 pts $10
Black raspberry and cassis aromas, with spicy mineral and floral elements. Powerful dark fruit flavors with vanilla and cola nuances and juicy acidity; velvety texture, with lingering spiciness.
Soter North Valley pinot noir ’12 Oregon $30
Spicy red and dark berry aromas; palate of juicy raspberry, floral pastille and licorice flavors lifted by tangy acidity. Silky and seamless, finishing with smooth, fine-grained tannins.
Matthews Sauvignon Blanc ’13 Washington
A scintillating nose of lime, melon, green apple and hints of quince, with a racy background of grapefruit and herbs. Bright, crisp and steely, with bracing acidity and minerality. A limited production wine for a good cause,
lummi island wine tasting october 25 ’14
This Week’s Breads
Janice arrives with fresh bread just after opening each Friday at 4pm.
This week’s Fresh breads include Semolina; Golden Raisin & Fennel Seed; Rustic.
Uh-oh, Bad Day for the Green Ketch!
A few weeks ago I posted an item about the sailboat that had been anchored in Legoe Bay most of the summer. In particular we were curious about its “Cascadia” flag. After being around for a few months, the boat went away a couple of weeks ago, only to return early this week.
That turned out to be unfortunate timing and a poor choice of anchorages for Tuesday night’s high winds from the southwest. Wednesday morning found the boat stranded on the shore with a substantial hole in her side. Local stalwarts spent some time trying to patch and refloat her, but to no avail, as these photos taken today attest. Aye, lads, it’s a sad business, as we well know from our own little adventure a few weeks ago…
2015 Calendars now on sale!
Wine club members Cheryl and Di are usually the first ones here each Friday afternoon as we open, along with Janice delivering the day’s Fresh Bread. These days they are often met by Bread Devotees from around the Island. Some of them don’t even drink wine…! Don’t they know they can’t Live by Bread Alone…???!
In any case, Cheryl and Di are both nature photographers of some skill, and each year they produce a calendar featuring Lummi Island scenes, often involving birds, the Ferry, birds, Mt. Baker, and perhaps a few birds. The point is that if you are not a bird, a ferry, or Mt. Baker, your picture will probably not be in the calendar. All you need to know is that we DO have their 2015 calendars on sale at the wine shop!
So it is with some pride and sense of Good Luck that this year’s photo of Mt. Baker also includes a sunrise sky in the background, and Hales Passage in the foreground, along with a picturesque sailboat quietly at anchor. It turns out it is our boat, the same one you just saw if you clicked on the link in the last sentence in the previous paragraph. She is now safely tucked in her slip in Bellingham for the winter, her bottom cleaned and painted, and no signs of damage from her recent grounding adventure. May the Green Ketch fare as well!
Wine Club…Do we still have one?
Last year was the first year of our Wine Club. The rules were complicated: discount tastings, different levels of purchase discounts based on sales, and members joining all through the year. We changed the rules a bit for this year, but our goal all along has been to give Wine Club members two kinds of rewards: 1) lower tasting fees than the general public, and 2) increasing savings the more wine you buy from us. The current rules are posted here.
This year we continue to be happy with the discount tastings part of our membership package, even though we have had only about half as many members. On the one hand that makes for fewer regular visitors. On the other hand, it means that a greater proportion of visitors are not members, and we do a little better than breaking even on tastings. On the third hand, it feels like our community of regulars has been declining in number, and that causes concern, because, in case you hadn’t noticed, building community is the main reason we continue to carry on this absurd pretense that we are some sort of “real business.” Now that is a scary thought!
Matthews
It’s hard to believe that we have been open for almost ten years. Back in those early days, one of the first wines we carried was from a Washington winery that had already established a reputation for quality. Having opened in 1993, it was an early player in a Washington wine scene that has grown on the order of a new winery every two weeks for the last twenty years. So in a sense these folks were pioneers.
As often happens in America (unlike elsewhere), retirement of one generation leads not to passing on the baton within the same family, but selling the whole kit and kaboodle to someone new, whether that be a human person or a corporate person. So I really don’t know what is going on at Matthews these days, but a few weeks ago their rep Eric stopped by (I was in the ferry line as he came off and detoured home to taste…duty calls!) and poured samples of all their wines. Suffice it to say I was impressed enough to buy several of them, which we will pour over the next couple of weeks. I think you will like them!
This week’s tasting
Grand Bateau Blanc ’12 France $11
80% sauvignon blanc and 20% semillon, it has reticent aromatics of apple skin, bruised peach, lemon, stone fruit kernels, hay, grass and gooseberry. The palate is medium to full bodied, the acid medium and its flavours remind of lemon, apple skin, grass and gooseberry.
Chateau Fontanes Rosé’13 France $17
Redcurrant and strawberry aromas are accented by orange zest and cinnamon. Silky and broad in the mouth, offering juicy red fruit flavors and slow-building spiciness.
Casarena ’505′ Malbec ’10 Chile $12
Nuanced aromas of currant, dusty herbs, licorice, spices, coffee and smoky oak. Serious and lively, with saline complexity to flavors of blackcurrant and cranberry. Intense, suave and long, a splendid value.
Bodegas Triton Entre Suelos ’11 Spain 90pts $12
Ripe cherry, cassis and licorice on the pungent nose. Broad, chewy and concentrated, offering spicy black and blue fruit flavors with suggestions of candied violet and black pepper.
Matthews Red Wine ’12 Washington $18
Syrah, Cab Franc, Merlot blend; solid dark berry fruits, spring flowers, graphite and spice to go with a medium to full-bodied, nicely textured and up-front profile.
2072 Granger Way
