Lummi Island Wine Tasting Artists’ Studio Tour August 31- Sept 1 ’13
Studio Tour Fantastique
Let’s face it, with thirty-some artists on this particular island, you really have No Idea what you are going to find on display for Studio Tour…but of course that is not our concern. Rather, our concern is to make sure that whatever you find elsewhere on the artists’ tour, your visit with us will the the High Point, the Ne Plus Ultra, the Sine Qua Non, of your Tour Experience. To that end, we will be showing innovative multemedia pieces by island friends and wineshop regulars Ryan Wildstar (multimedia with seaweed, below) and Pam Miller (bronze sculpture, left). The pieces are creative, unique, and innovative, and will be showing through September. Don’t miss them!
Jungle Bus
(click on photos for larger view)
Those of us of a certain age have all seen “The Movie.” Actually, there was an entire genre of them through the fifties, and, of course, in black-and-white. (the original King Kong –click for trailer–is probably the most famous). The scene:…it’s foggy…several men in khakis and pith helmets row across a quiet lagoon a small boat…the oars seem too loud in the water. They reach a bank, step out of the boat and listen. Maybe there are a few terrifying screeches in the distance, and then eerie silence. They look at each other, mixes of concern and confidence. Several reach reflexively for their rifles, and one of the men whispers, “time has stood still on this island for Six Million Years…!” Remember? Well, it was a little like that a few days ago, when a very large wrecker truck began pulling, from deep in the woods along the property line with our nextdoor neighbors, an old purple school bus that has been sitting there for so long it was thickly covered in moss– so long that one of the back wheels wouldn’t turn, and like Igor on his crutch, the bus dragged the wheel with it like a giant anchor as it very slowly inched its way to the outside world, returning to its Source, following its Karma, and on to its next reincarnation.
Chocolate!
In case I forgot to mention it last week, we have finally replenished our supply of Theo Chocolate bars, and the old Opus One crate where we display them is again full! I am admittedly and proudly in that minority of chocolate lovers who generally prefer milk chocolate to dark chocolate, so I am particularly excited about one new Theo’s bar we have just added: salted almond milk chocolate! They are packaged in the larger 4-oz bars, totally adequate to tide you over till dinnertime after a tough afternoon of looking at art and tasting wine. And by the way, in case you didn’t know, Theo’s is located in Fremont in the old Red Hook Brewery. If you like chocolate and are in the area, stop by to taste their amazing confections and take a tour if you have time. You can follow the chocolate through its evolution from raw bean to finished product! And yes, there is a LOT of tasting throughout the journey. In the meantime, come by our place and load up to help you with Mood Management as our amazing summer of aught-thirteen starts heading south.
This Weekend’s Special Tasting!
Again this Studio Tour our friend Tristan from our favorite importer Small Vineyards will be pouring several of their French and Spanish wines on Saturday, and telling stories about the winemakers and the regions. All of these wines way over-deliver for their meager prices, so be sure to stop by!
Alta Vins Blanc Spain $11
65% Garnacha, 30% Macabeo, 5% Muscat; From high and exposed vineyards with very warm days and briskly cool nights comes this beautiful, expressive, admirably complex wine with elegant notes of sweet grass, herbs, gooseberries and crisp pear.
Borie de Maurel Rose France $11
Mourvedre, Grenache, Carignan; Fruity, smooth, spicy, lively, and “garriguey,” made in the vineyard, by real people, to soothe the body’s thirst and the spirit’s hunger!
Alta Vins Tinto Joven Spain $11
60% Garnacha, 30% Syrah, 10% Carinena; Brilliant garnet color; bright and fresh with notes of red currant, balsamic, and rose water.
Finca El Tesso Tempranillo Spain $10
100% Tempranillo; From a remote region of Spain near Portugal, with more vines (and sheep) than people, over 600 meters above sea level, where wines develop a rich, alluring complexity.
Mas Oncle Ernest Instant Present France $19
80% grenache, 20% syrah; from Cotes de Ventoux in southern Rhone Valley, this wine seduces with Old World charm, dark fruit, and earthy richness.
Lummi Island Wine Tasting August 24 ’13
Lemmings
Perhaps no one really likes surprises, except maybe those who spring them on others. Still, there are some predictable events which are, depending on how you look at them, a little annoying, a little irritating, a little— how does one say it with grace– ill-conceived, thoughtless, and burdensome– you know. like the annual Drydock scheduling…?
Back in the Day, drydock periods were only two weeks long, and they were mostly in May, when traffic was light. Somewhere along the line them-as-decides-without-reason shifted Drydock to September…a really Bad Idea that continues to this day. While we are strong supporters of a well-maintained Whatcom Chief — (where would we be without her??!!), and thank our County officials for an efficient passenger service while the car ferry is out of service each year, I am on this soapbox tonight to exclaim: 1) closing the car ferry in September rather than May imposes a huge economic cost on Island businesses, and 2) taking the ferry out of service the day after Labor Day (instead of one or two days later) is Cruel and Unusual to the point of bureaucratic Sadism, leading us all to line up for hours on Labor Day for our own chance to throw ourselves off the island like lemmings afraid to get left behind in the mass exodus. I mean, is there really someone who sits around making this stuff up, or what??? How do things like this Happen??
Loading Up for Drydock
Speaking of Drydock, we have written in past years about the unique cultural dynamics that manifest during Week 1, Week,2, and Week 3, better known to Islanders as “LoL,“ “OMG,” and “WTF”…which is, at root, about the de-evolution over time from “novel cameraderie” to “the warmth of shared inconvenience” to “smile bravely over barely contained rage.” When I was commuting every day, the effect was co-measured by how much farther from the ferry I would have to park each evening as drydock lingered on. Now that there is no longer an actual parking lot on the mainland (see above), our hearts go out to those stalwart souls who still somehow find the fortitude to carry on.
Since we can’t change any of that, the best we can do, individually and collectively, is to adapt as best we can. For us it means loading up on enough wine to tide us over through Drydock, because schlepping wine down the dock on a handtruck, vaulting it on and off across the gap between dock and commuter boat, and then getting it home, is, as someone once said about sailing a small boat in a hurricane, “most devoutly to be eschewed.” Bottom line: today we brought in 20 cases of really interesting new wines we will be pouring over the next few weeks, and we think you are going to like them! So stick around, and remember: although our regular hours are Friday from 4-7 and Saturday from 2-6, we are open Anytime for Wine Emergencies!
This weekend
So, beginning this weekend, look for a lot of new wines in our weekly tasting lineup. For example, our white this weekend is the Hermann Moser Gruner Veltliner, which I confess I have not tried, but bought on the recommendation of a friend. Gruners (“gee-vees”) are the predominant white wines of Austria, and combine a delightful array of unique features, including a complex palate that is at the same time crisp-minerally on the one hand while being fruity and aromatic on the other. Falling somewhere on the spectrum between riesling and chardonnay, gruner veltliner has it all: fruit, aroma, acidity, and complex flavors. Similarly, the Eric Texier Cotes de Rhone represents a style of winemaking that values age old traditions (Ryan loves it, I’m not so sure). And the Caldaro Kaltern Lagrein, from the northern Alps of Italy, is another adventure in tasting, with dark fruit and complex nuances that may challenge your palate (Ryan hates it, I like it!)
This week’s wines
Hermann Moser Gruner Veltliner ’11 Austria $14
Light yellow with hues of green. Shows fruit, smoke, spice and pepper on the nose; crisp and balanced, dense and complex on the palate with flavors of quince, apples, pears and mineral notes.
Underwood Pinot Noir ’11 Oregon $11
Notes of cranberries and red raspberries with hints of smoke and spice. The palate is filled with sweet raspberry fruit intertwined with warm cinnamon tones.
Real de Aragon Garnacha ’07 Spain 88pts $11
expressive nose of cherry and cassis. On the palate it has a touch of silky tannin, good grip, savory fruit, and a medium-long finish
Texier Vaison la Romaine Cotes de Rhone ’10 France $16
Bright purple. A wild, intensely perfumed bouquet evokes dark berries, violet, Indian spices and cured meat. Sappy, sharply focused black raspberry and licorice flavors are given depth by a touch of licorice pastille and pick up a smoky quality with air. Finishes long and spicy, with resonating bitter cherry and violet notes.
Caldaro Kaltern Lagrein ’10 Italy $18
Ripe and dark and loaded with earthy cherry and plum fruit and bitter chocolate notes. The texture is generous and round- making it a nice sipper – but bright acidity and fine tannins let it shine at table
Lummi Island Wine Tasting August 18 ’13
Something for Everyone
We have a lot of friends who don’t drink wine, and who therefore don’t come by the wine shop very often. Given how many hours we spend at this almost-a-real-business, long periods of time can pass without visiting with them. As one way to address this, we have stocked a few interesting non-alcoholic beverages for those who might have felt excluded by our limited offerings.
Who knew there was a world of innovative, relatively low-sugar, natural-ingredient beverages out there these days, wonderful alternatives to the likes of Coke, Pepsi– and of course their Ilk and their Kith and their Kin, including especially their diabolical “diet” versions which could only have come from the Subterranean Kitchens of Hades! But I digress…let’s just say we are looking for interesting and enjoyable non-alcoholic tasting options, and we would like those options to be “artisan” creations like the wines we prefer to carry.
For starters we have a little supply of Fever-Tree Ginger Beer, Hubert’s (i.e., Hansen’s) lemonade/iced tea blend, and Dry Soda’s juniper-berry flavor… all very tasty and unusual. For example tasting notes (I am not making this up) for the Fever Tree Ginger Beer say it “has three different gingers: from Ivory Coast, a green ginger to add lightness and surprising notes of lime; Nigerian ginger adds intensity and complexity; and Indian ginger is earthy with intriguing chocolate notes.” (Sounds like a nice pairing with Ginger Beef…!)
Last Weekend
After several weekends of record crowds (for us), last weekend proved to be very low-key. It was a little reminiscent of our early years, when the measure of success was how many interesting conversations we had in an afternoon. Those relaxing lulls when there are only the handful of people at the bar seem to happen less often in the Summer, so this past weekend it was nice to be able to spend more time with each of our visitors, including almost-locals Matt and Kyoko. Much of our conversation orbited around the Japanese Tea Ceremony, of which Kyoko is a student, and our interest in supporting Tea classes or events here on Lummi Island. Tea is a long-term interest of mine– I made raku tea bowls for each of our wedding guests back in 2000– and I admire the form as a meditative discipline that weaves mindfulness, movement, and service into a demanding practice.
Cloudlift Updraft
Since most of you didn’t come by last weekend, most of you didn’t get to taste the sample bottle of Cloudlift Updraft that Seattle winemaker Tom Stangeland had given us the previous weekend. We poured it for the Faithful who showed up, and lo and behold it was gone, but not until sometime Saturday (you see what I mean about a diminutive turnout…!). I haven’t contacted Tom about the wine yet, but suffice it to say it was a beautiful interpretation of a classic White Bordeaux (sauvignon blanc and semillon) with the added weight of the ripeness that Washington can deliver (compared to Bordeaux on average). All hands were uniformly in favor! So kudos, Tom, on a delicious wine…we WILL be in touch!
Support your local woodworker
Another of our infrequent guests last weekend was local woodworker and builder (and sailor!) Steve Thomas, whom I first met many years ago when we had our ancient wooden sailboats hauled out at the same time in Bellingham. It is probably enough to know that we have both had fiberglass sailboats for many years now despite our aesthetic preference for the beautiful (but so demanding!) wooden boats of our dreams. Of course, ‘glass makes a lot more sense for me than for him, because he is in fact a master woodworker, while I spent most of the twelve years I owned “Windsong” replacing little bits of rotten wood with various hi-tech plastics and epoxies. I mean, eventually it would all have been plastic anyway, right?
More to the point, Steve has recently completed an extensive remodel of a guest cottage on the North end of Lummi Island near Point Migley. “The goal was to redesign and remodel an island guest cottage originally built as a shed in the 1930’s.” Amazingly, the project was completed in a mere six months of intensive effort, and is a contender for recognition in Fine Homebuilding Magazine. If you drive around the north end of the Island you can see the cottage, and if you go to this link, you can vote “thumbs up” for his project. And if Enough of us vote for it, the project will get written up in a future issue of Fine Homebuilding! So Please, Please, click on the link and vote “thumbs up!’ Yes, we can do this! Do it NOW, thanks!
This week’s tasting
Morgues du Gres Fleur d’Eglantine Rosé ’12 France $14
Light orange-pink. Spice-accented aromas of redcurrant, strawberry and roses, with tangy red berry and orange zest. Finishes spicy and firm, with a lingering floral note.
Cantine Farro Falanghina ’11 Italy $18
Fresh, vibrant nose full of citrus, melon and mineral notes—a good example of a tighter, leaner version of golden yellow grapefalanghina, common in the mineral-rich Campi Flegrei area of Campania.
Talamonti Montepulciano d’Abruzzo ’11 Italy $10
High-toned, with a candied edge to the dark cherry aromas and flavors that are backed by hints of mace and dried flowers, with a dash of bitters on the finish.
Terres D’Artagnan Gascogne ’10 France $9
Alluring nose of black raspberry, flowers, and garrigue leads into a very juicy, round and harmonious palate with velvety, soft, ripened tannins and fresh acidity.
Altavins Tinto Joven ’11 Spain $11
Mouth and sense-filling blend of garnacha, syrah, and carinena, full of ripe dark fruit and berry flavors from Terra Alta’s hot days and cool nights close to Tarragona and the Mediterranean.
Lummi Island Wine Tasting August 10 ’13
Optimization
One of the most interesting topics I explored as an economist was the idea of “optimization.” To understand what optimization is about, just think about Goldilocks and the Three Bears: whether it is the temperature of a bowl of porridge, the comfort of a chair, or the softness of a bed, many things can either be too this way or too that way or, optimally “Just Right.” So, given my long interest in this subject (optimization, not the Three Bears), it was exciting to get an email this week with the interesting Venn diagram image at left, confirming what I have known to be True for a very long time! Wow! (Warning: zone of optimality may vary among individuals..!)
Lummi Island Run
The Beach School PTO is doing an ambitious fund-raiser in early September that should appeal to many of you who read this blog. It’s a Run on the Island, a bit more grand than the “Run on the Rock” events held a few years ago (by odd coincidence I am at this very moment wearing my T-shirt from the 2006 event!). See the complete (and gorgeous!) brochure online for all the ways you can participate and make the event a success. You youngsters should sign up for the half-marathon, and maybe a bunch of us geezers should sign up for a nice long walk that day…! Here are the options:
Start times
14-mile: 8:30am
7-mile: 9am
3.5-mile: 9:30am
100-yard dash: 9:45am
Cloud lift Cellars
Once a year about this time we get a visit from Tom (pink polo) and Joannie Stangeland (black jersey), who make an annual summer visit to the Willows Inn to kick back and celebrate. Tom is a master furniture builder turned winemaker who lives in Seattle. For years we have been trying to connect with him in Seattle to taste his wines, and on their Lummi visits they never seem to have any wine with them for us to taste..! So during our tasting and conversation last week, at some point Tom took off and came back with a sample bottle of his 2011 Cloudlift Updraft, a classic Bordeaux white blend: “The 64% Sauvignon Blanc steps up and takes control of the nose and palate, while the 36% Semillon adds a subtle backbone to the texture.”
We only have the one bottle, but we will open and pour it along with our regular tasting this weekend, beginning Friday night. Note: the way things have gone the last few weeks, it will probably be gone by 5 or 5:30 Friday night, so don’t dally!
Rollerball
I moved here in 1975. Sometime that first year here I went to the sci-fi movie “Rollerball” starring James Caan as the brutal-and-stupid-yet-sensitive Hero Athlete of the fast-paced and violent game of “Rollerball”, and John Houseman as the Corporate Bad Guy. For those who weren’t around at the time, there actually was a somewhat popular TV sport of the era called “Roller Derby,” which involved mostly young women with abbreviated costumes and few other options racing around an indoor track on roller skates. At the time, it was a pretty short leap from the reality of Roller Derby to the Science Fiction of “Rollerball.”
Despite the fact that it was NOT a great film in the usual sense, the story had an impact on me that remains today. So last night I sat up late and watched it online. and as I suspected, its premise was prescient of our time in many ways. Because this is, after all, a “wine blog,”, I will not venture too far into the political implications here. However, the scene below pretty well captures what I recall as the main message of the film, one which is even more relevant now than it was 35 years ago (omd, did I just say “35 years ago”…?!…Btw, was Houseman a GREAT actor, or what?)
This week’s tasting
Il Filare Rosado ’08 Italy $8
A rosé of 80% Bombino Nero and 20% Montepulciano; aromas of strawberries and fresh-cut grass. Dry as bone with brilliant minerality, beautiful fruit and crisp acidity.
Altavins Garnacha Blanca ’11 Spain $18
A beautiful, expressive, admirably complex wine with elegant notes of sweet grass, herbs, gooseberries and crisp pear.
Palama Primitivo ’11 Italy $13
Floral aromatics mix with notes of tobacco, citrus, and wild herbs; ripe, fresh, lush, and bright, with notes of dark anise, cedar, and blackberry confit.
Vignavecchia Chianti Classico ’10 Italy 89pts $18
(90% sangio, 10% merlot) Aromas of redcurrant, cherry pit, violet and tobacco lead to intense flavors of redcurrant, bitter cherry, spices, and merlot-derived nuances of cocoa and coffee.
Volver Tarima Hill Monastrell ’10 Spain 93pts $14
Notes of chocolate fudge, black ink, graphite, blueberries and blackberries. This full-bodied, 100% Monastrell should drink well for a decade or more.
2072 Granger Way