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.
Lummi Island Wine Tasting June 1 ’13
Pearrygin State Park
We just got home from a couple of days in the trailer at Pearrygin State Park in Winthrop. Our visit found a mix of rain, thunderstorms, gray skies, and intermittent sunshine. And at this time of year the entire landscape stretches out in shades of green, the straw and brown tones of the hot summer as yet nowhere in sight.
click images for larger views!
We don’t get to the Methow Valley very often, but when we do we are always struck by the beauty of the area. The near views present plants and trees in a lighter color range and density than we are used to here on the Wet Side, and the panoramas of steep hills add a definite drama to the landscape. Because the contrast between here and there increases as the Eastern slope gets hotter and dryer, a short trip over the mountains can fill your wet tank and your dry tank very nicely in a single day…one of the wonders of Northwest living…something about that contrast nourishes the soul somehow, don’t you think?
Duck Brand Hotel and Cantina
For us, no visit to Winthrop would be complete without a stop at the Duck Brand, a singular establishment near the center of Winthrop that dates back some 120 years; the original building still stands nearby. On this occasion we met up for lunch with fellow Lummi Islanders Jo Ann and Tom P. and Jim and Ellen R., coincidentally camping at the same park (no, I am not making this up!). I recommend the duck breast quesadilla shown at left… (very tasty!).
And we shared a little dish of the last four pan-fired jalapenos in the place (so, no, these are not grasshoppers!). This was our first exposure to this flavorful method of pan-frying peppers in olive oil and rolling in salt, very simple, and which brings out the flavor of the pepper as well as the heat. CAUTION: individual peppers vary WILDLY in their comparative fire…taste first, pop later!
Lost River
Despite the many charms of the Methow Valley, no trip would be complete without a stop at Lost River Winery, of which we have written on numerous occasions. Yesterday, although the tasting room was closed and we had not heard back on our emails and phone calls, by serendipity we happened by just at the time that winemaker (and former Whatcom County Engineer) John Morgan was driving in to meet with another account. That turned out to be Mike Cooney, owner of The Vogue….A Liquid Lounge in Lake Chelan, a sort of wine & espresso bar. He is also owner of a vintage 1979 VW camper van, still looking good and going strong (all you need to know is that I have owned one VW van or another for most of the last 30 years!). We had a great time tasting through the current Lost River lineup with Mike and his daughter. The Vogue sounds like a great place to visit, and the next time we are anywhere near Chelan we will certainly make it a point to visit, and so should you!
Not surprisingly, we liked a lot of the wines we tasted, and we have brought back a bunch. Therefore this weekend’s tasting will be entirely Lost River wines. See the list below for details. I think their wines just keep getting better and better, and I know you will like them!
This Week’s Tasting: Lost River Latest Releases
Lost River Pinot Gris ’12 Washington $15
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 Rose’12 Washington $15
Merlot and cabernet franc, harvested early to preserve crisp acidity and bright notes of strawberry and cherry. Maybe even better than last year!
Lost River Rainshadow ’12 Washington $15
60% Semillon and 40% Sauvignon Blanc Crisp, fruity, and bright, a classic Bordeaux blend.
Lost River Cote-Wall ’09 Washington $25
Co-fermented from syrah and viognier harvested on the same day, this lovely syrah shows deep layers of stone fruits and black pepper that grab your attention from the first sniff.
Lost River Merlot ’09 Washington $21
A near perfect vintage for Washington Merlot; notes of black currant, cassis, cherry, and licorice.
2072 Granger Way