Lummi Island Wine Tasting June 22 ’13
Buoygone Era…?
Over the weekend the Coast Guard sent the long-awaited Buoy Tender (no, it is NOT something to put on the grill for dinner!) to retrieve our visiting Bell Buoy from Legoe Bay. One can’t help but wonder if it has been returned to it Rightful Place in the Great Waters, doing its solitary duty, or sent to some kind of Shelter for Wayward Buoys, or perhaps refurbished and placed on call to await its next “Buoy Wanted” assignment…:)
This particular tender is from the relatively new 175-foot “Keeper” inland class, one of several that replaced the old 180-ft class that served for a half-century and more. Many of us around here spend time on the water, and completely take for granted that buoys will be in their correct locations, that their lights will blink at the correct intervals, that they are painted the correct colors…in short, that the marine and coastal highway is properly marked and maintained. When we can take such things for granted it generally means the job is getting quietly and competently done…for which all boaters are grateful!
see fun video
see detailed history of buoy tenders
Blog Care and Feeding
So. As regular followers of this blog (both of you!) know, we have been wrestling for several weeks now with getting our blog feed emailed out to you each time we make a post. (yes, the editorial “we”– it is at once so efficiently inclusive, charmingly self-effacing, and effectively evasive…)
Anyway. in today’s episode, I was fooling around with the code in one of the bazillion or so pages each WordPress site uses to dispense its content to the World, when for reasons unknown, the several browser windows I had open for the task all started displaying their little swirlies, you know, the new “hourglass from Hell” indicating your program has just gone over a virtual cliff. So I did what any of you would have done: took the dogs for a long walk in the rain!
Just as I got home, the guys at my local server were calling to tell me that I had apparently put their server in some kind of iterative loop, where, like a Black Hole, it was gulping resources at such a rate as to threaten our entire Galaxy! And to think: I did it with just one tiny bit of misplaced Code! Who knew it was all so Fragile? Could it be that our entire intergalactic internet eavesdropping system is this vulnerable, not only to deliberate attack by Mutant Hackers, but — so much more likely and therefore so much more dangerous– to inadvertent collapse from the random explorations of innocent bloggers just trying to get their next post to mail properly? Do we really want people like me to have that kind of Power?! More to the point, this week will subscribers finally get this blog post in their emails again???
Another Summer Solstice
It’s nice to have things you can count on, things that aren’t political or subject to outsourcing by their current corporate owner. All of this world is, after all, about Impermanence, and so it seems natural to look for something Steady to moor your boat to. Once a year our planet completes a revolution around the Sun, and once a year we mark the northernmost point on our horizon where the sun will rise. Our ancestors built icons like Stonehenge to the Mystery of it. Mystery is a good thing; it keeps us on our toes.
Maybe, if our planet were not tilted so greatly on its axis, and there were no seasons, life might never have evolved, or humanoids might never have evolved. But this business of seasons, with its times of plenty and times of scarcity, times of darkness and of light, of warmer and colder, brings impermanence right into the realm of daily weather, and has made survival a bit more complicated, especially in higher latitudes, raising the bar in the Darwinian struggle.
Bottom line: it’s good to be here, and it’s good to celebrate the coming of another Summer!
This Week’s Tasting
Ryan Patrick Naked Chardonnay ’11 Washington $10
Clean and crisp with a bouquet of melon followed by hints of apricot and pineapple on the palate. (note: ‘Naked’ means ‘unoaked’).
Saint Nabor Gris de Gris Rose ’12 France $10
Bouquet of red fruit and honeysuckle with linden-tree nuances; light, crisp and easy drinking, with palate of wild strawberries and blueberries with mineral nuances.
Villa Luisa Chianti ’11 Italy $9
Satisfying well beyond its humble price point, showing red fruits and violets on the nose, with smooth, soft palate.
2010 Brian Carter Abracadabra Red Wine ’10 Washington 89pts $16
Musky, reduced aromas of redcurrant and smoky oak, followed by intense redcurrant and spice flavors; finishes with firm tannins, hints of pepper and herbs and very good length.
Bodegas Volver Single Vineyard Tempranillo ’10 Spain 91pts $15
Explosive, seductively perfumed aromas of candied red and dark berries, incense, rose pastille and Asian spices. Sappy, penetrating black raspberry and blueberry flavors, with smoky mineral and star anise nuances, lingering spiciness, and gentle tannins.
Lummi Island Wine Tasting June 14 ’13
Lost Buoy
You will all recall that the “Lost Boys” were Peter Pan’s fellow inhabitants of Never-Never Land. Well, for the past couple of weeks we have had our own “lost buoy” sitting in Haro Strait a few hundred yards offshore in Legoe Bay. It moves a bit with the tide but apparently its chain has fouled on the bottom, keeping it more or less moored off Lovers’ Bluff. This is a pretty good-sized buoy, with a sturdy bell that can be heard at a great distance, as I am sure many nearby residents will confirm.
Numerous Islanders have called the Coast Guard to report the presence of the buoy, and this morning a CG vessel spent about an hour tied up to it. At one point it looked as though they would take it in tow, but no, it is still there. Apparently there aren’t many buoy tenders around here, so here it sits. One has to wonder where it came from and how local mariners are getting by without its guidance–and how often buoys get, you know–“lost!” Looking for something different to do…? Go on down to Legoe Bay and listen to the buoy for a while. It is curiously soothing.
(click on photos for larger versions)
’37 Cellars
A couple of weeks ago we spent a few days near Winthrop, as mentioned in the blog for June 1, when we poured Lost River wines we had brought back from the trip. It turns out those weren’t the only wines we tasted on the trip. For whatever karmic reason, Island friends Tom and JoAnn had grabbed a campsite next to ’37 Cellars winemaker Frank Dechaine (at left), who was taking the week off from his winery in Leavenworth to do some fishing. Though the weather was cool and spitting raindrops, Frank treated us to a tasting of his wines under this very functional little tarp, which fit perfectly over the campground picnic table and kept us all reasonably dry..good idea, huh?!
Btw, the name ” ’37 Cellars” has nothing to do with numbers of cellars. Rather, Frank and his partner in the winery are also long-time musicians who both own classic 1937 Martin D18 guitars. So they play music together and make wine together. We didn’t hear them play, but we did get to try the wines. I picked up a few bottles of their very interesting merlot for you to taste this weekend. As you know, Washington merlot often makes bigger red wines than Washington cabernet, and this one is no exception. Come on by and try it!
The Return of Rosé
In the last month or so there have been a lot of beautiful sunny days here on the Island. At the end of the summer last year I built a deck in front of the house, just barely getting some oil on it before the Rain started. And while I do think it looks good out there, I didn’t figure there would be very many days warm enough actually to sit out there and enjoy it, because the SW wind is so constant off the water here. So it is with some pleasant surprise that this late spring has unfolded with so much glorious sunshine that we have actually had several lunches and an occasional late-afternoon glass of wine on the deck, without, you know, dressing for Winter!
So it is in the spirit of what might turn out to be one of our warmest summers that we salute the return of Summer with the restocking of last year’s “Rosé Shrine” at the top of the stairs. Last weekend we poured several wines from one of our favorite French producers, La Rocaliere from the region of Lirac. This weekend we will pour a rosé from another favorite wine region, Pic St. Loup. Though it is only about an hour and a half drive between Lirac and Pic St. Loup, the regions are very different geographically and geologically. Average temperatures in Pic St. Loup are cooler and rainfall a little higher. Wind protects the vines from the twin problems of rot and frost, and the soil is stony and poor, based on clay and limestone, leading to wines with noticeable backbone. The Lirac style is more pedigreed, with several different soil types, yielding strong, structured, and aromatic wines that are fresh and elegant.
This Week’s Wines
Bodegas Naia Las Brisas ’11 Spain 89pts $11
(verdejo, viura & sauv blanc): Pale gold. Bright citrus and mineral aromas, plus a hint of quince. Smooth and silky on the palate, offering lively hints of apple, tangerine, and a hint of ginger.
Chateau Lancyre Pic St. Loup Rosé ’12 France 90 pts $15
(50% syrah, 40% grenache and 10% cinsault): Light, bright pink. Red raspberry and fresh aromas of thyme, lavender, and rosemary. Bright and focused on the palate.
Familongue “Le Carignan” ’08 France $12
From 75 year old vines in gravelly soil, this carignan has brambly dark fruit, a soft palate, and great depth of flavor.
Bodegas Avante Tineta Ribera del Duero ’11 Spain 90pts $14
(100% tempranillo) Intense aromas of blueberry, cherry liqueur, licorice and Indian spices. Lively, with zesty minerality, energetic black and blue fruit flavors and bitter chocolate notes over a long, spicy and sharply focused finish.
’37 Cellars Merlot ’10 Washington $26
Offers aromas and flavors of bramble fruits, berry, cherry and hints of leather and cedar, riding on smooth, mouth-coating tannins. Enjoy it with your char-grilled steak or herb-crusted rack of lamb.
This is a drill, this is drill…
Back in my Navy days, aboard ship, and as seen in movies and tv shows, the announcement, accompanied by an electronic “bong-bong-bong-bong-bong” would be something like “This is a drill, this is a drill, General Quarters, General Quarters, all hands man your battle stations!…”
For the past few weeks, you may have noticed that you have not been receiving the weekly email with our latest blog post for Artisan Wine Gallery. We have spent an enormous amount of time trying to fix this sudden and unexplainable development, with little success, or more precisely, little means of testing our success.’
The bottom line is that if you are receiving this, then we have solved the problem. Unfortunately, we cannot tell if the system is working without a “live test.” Hopefully we will all receive this post as an email on Sunday and regular weekly posts will begin again next Friday morning!
Lummi Island Wine Tasting June 8 ’13
Software Can Drive You Crazy
For the last three weeks (I SO hope you have noticed!) each Thursday night (as usual) I have posted the latest installment of this blog. What is supposed to happen after that is that around 5am on Friday, each of our dear subscribers should receive that latest blog post via email. But for each of those weeks, although I have done everything the same, the expected notification emails have not been sent, which means that, OMD (ohmidog!), no one received that blog post I just slaved over for hours!
I have spent an embarrassing number of hours trying to fix this little problem, including asking my various WordPress gurus for help, all to no avail. Of course, you may not get this post, either, for all I know, though I had some promising results an hour or two ago. Also, of course, I have no idea at all if anyone actually views these posts online, where they exist, or meta-exist, or whatever kind of existence happens in cyberspace, in some kind of insubstantial perpetuity. All of this adds up to a sort of metaphysical, blog-angst-driven sense of futility and irrelevance. So……….if you write a blog in the forest, and no one ever reads it, was there ever really a blog???
La Rocaliere Revisited
One of the highlights of our October 2011 France trip was our visit to La Rocaliere, a small winery in Lirac, the somewhat overlooked wine region just across the Rhone River from the very famous (and expensive) appellation of Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Just to put things in context, let’s say Lirac is to Chateauneuf-du-Pape as Lummi Island is to, say, Napa; the forces of commerce have rarified one and ignored the other. The blends are similar, the regions are just across the river from one another, the climate is the same. Yet you drive through Lirac and you feel you are in the country; you drive through CdP and you feel you are somehow Not Worthy.
(from Nov 2011) We tasted a lot of delicious wines on our trip to France, and these (from La Rocaliere) were our favorites. Sisters Melanie and Severine took over the winery from their father and are putting their own fingerprints on the wines. Melanie (left) runs the business, and Severine (right) is the winemaker; her style is to interfere as little as possible with the natural development of the wines. She uses no oak at all; the red wines are fermented and aged in cement tanks, which, as we learned in Italy, iosolate the wines from noise, vibration, and temperature variation, and this gives the wines a noticeable stability and integration. Each of these wines, while unique to itself, clearly is made by the same hand; this sense of a particular winemaker’s style is one of the most fascinating characteristics of wine, and this Domaine has a definite and very appealing style. All of Rocaliere’s wines share the common characteristics of balance, naturalness, integration, and elegance. These wines really strike a chord for me, and I am delighted to find that they are available again! You gotta come by and try them!
Little James Basket Press
I first came upon this wine about seven years ago. I bought a case for the shop, and it took a year or two to sell it all. During that time, the wine became an icon for the difference between Old World and New World wines. This wine was truly unruly, with strange notes of earthy mushrooms, truffle, and dark red fruits. “Gamy” would have been an appropriate expression…interesting, and not to everyone’s taste. It took well over a year to sell just the one case, and usually the buyer was a young man intrigued by the challenge of a “wild wine”…Arrrrrr!
LJBP is made by a top French producer in the Southern Rhone (St. Cosme) which makes wines from several top regions, including CdP and Gigondas (we visited them in October 2011). As another blogger reports, “two minutes after cracking the screw cap, this 2011 bottling of St. Cosme Little James’ Basket Press is already the most interesting red wine under $10 I’ve tasted in all searchable memory.” LJBP is made from the solera method, like sherry or sourdough. Each year the juice from the latest harvest is added in a small proportion to a solera “mother” that has been “cooking” since “1999.
As I write this I have not yet tasted this wine, but I am seriously looking forward to it! It represents an important and elusive measure of regional terroir, traditional style, and organic process. Don’t miss it!
This Week’s Tasting
Chateau L’Ermitage Blanc ’12 France $10
An old favorite here, this vintage is even better– Light gold in color with aromas of peach, flowers, and honey; the Grenache Blanc, Viognier, and Roussanne, a heavenly blend!
La Rocaliere Lirac Blanc ’11 France $16
The nose is subtle and elegant with beautiful floral aromas of jasmine, honeysuckle, and verbena. On the palate, the wine is rich and round with wonderful notes of fresh citrus.
La Rocaliere Lirac Rose ’10 France $14
From sandy and clayish slopes with round pebbles; Grenache brings its fruitiness and richness; cinsault, its finesse and length; mourvèdre and syrah, red fruit aromas and aging potential.
St. Cosme Little James Basket Press ’12 France $11
Precise, aromatic nose of cassis, cherry and lavender. Tightly wound on the palate, with a firm mineral spine giving clarity and lift to the dark berry and bitter cherry flavors. Finishes with gentle tannins and good focus.
La Rocaliere Lirac Rouge ’10 France $16
Equal parts grenache, mourvedre, and syrah. Clay hillsides with round pebbles yield this
inky purple, with deeply pitched aromas and flavors of cherry-cola, licorice and violets. Youthful and firm, with a powerful finishing punch and lingering tannins.
2072 Granger Way