Lummi Island Wine Tasting March 16 ’13 St. Patrick’s Weekend
Annual Nod to St. Pattie
“The first known St. Patrick’s Day celebration was held in 1762, when Irish soldiers enrolled in the British army marched down Broadway in a display of ethnic pride. Some stayed when their enlistments expired, and New York, then as now, became a center of Irish immigration to America. In later years, New York Irish would organize parades on March 17, a different one for each neighborhood, church, and fraternal order. They would eventually come together in one parade in the 1850s, and New York has held a big St. Patrick’s Day parade ever since.” read more
Or, most obvious to all of us these days, “what the day has become is a day to express Irish American identity.” Hey, THAT sounds right! And not to mention, another very fine excuse to get drunk– traditionally, mind you: Catholics with Jameson, and Protestants with Bushmill.” Well, sez I, bein’ as I am 100% Irish on me mother’s side, whatever floats yer boat, eh…? Whatever yer ancestry, Happy St. Pattie’s Day to all; and hey, ferget the whiskey, ‘n’ come fer the wine!
Special Second Tasting: Two New Betz Wines
This past Sunday I drove down to Woodinville for the annual release of the Betz “Bordeaux blends.” As I have mentioned before, Bob Betz models each of his wines after his favorite French wine regions. Because Bordeaux is divided into Right Bank (east bank of the Gironde, predominantly merlot) and Left Bank wines (predominantly cabernet sauvignon), he makes one of each. “Clos de Betz” is his merlot-based wine, and “Pere de Famille” is his cab-based wine. As a special treat, we will be pouring the new “Clos de Betz” as part of a second tasting this weekend. watch video
Back in September we picked up the Betz 2010 “Rhone blends.” One, Besoleil, predominantly grenache, is modeled after Chateauneuf-du-Pape; one (syrah-based la Serenne) modeled after the rich Southern Rhone style, and one (syrah-based Cotes Rousse) modeled after the brooding Northern Rhone style. So this weekend along with the new “Clos” we will also be pouring the 2010 Besoleil as part of our optional second tasting.
Come by and check it out!
Wine Club Update
Hmm. The way this blog thing works is that I like to have a picture to anchor each paragraph. Since we have a LOT of photos accumulated over the years, sometimes it is hard to remember what is going on, not to mention WHO is going on! This photo is from last May; the wine is a perfect color, and I LOVE the hats, especially the one on the left. It reminds me that a couple of years ago the Talls came in with a festive group (as they often do!) including a young man with a great hat, a lot like the one in this pic. I liked it so much I ordered one online that looked about right, and it was Oh, SO Wrong I sent it back. Sigh. In any case, this photo does a nice job illustrating the raison d’etre of our wine shop and our wine club…it’s about sharing and belonging!
Response so far to the wine club has been enthusiastic! Most of our regulars are joining or have joined, and I am hoping that before this weekend is over I can get all of our members’ personal pages updated with your purchases to date this year…wish me luck! And thanks for bearing with us during this time of turmoilic transitions. (if that’s not a word, it oughta be!)
Online Store Update
All I can say about this is: “Oh, man, what a Project! You can monitor our progress at the new online store website. Since last week I have activated some of the links, posted our own photos instead of the generic ones, added some new behind the scenes software (payment gateways for Paypal and your favorite credit/debit cards), and added a few actual products, including the Betz wines mentioned above (with more detailed notes below). So progress is slow, but sure. And while it continues to be challenging, I think we have rounded a corner of sorts, now feeling pretty confident that this is going to work…and that’s pretty exciting. Now…remind me again about why we are doing this…??!
Looking forward to seeing you!
This Week: TWO Tastings!
#1: five good wines for $10 ($5 for members!)
La Font du Vent Rosé “Les Promesses” ’11 France 88pts $10
Very pure and showing nice drive, this delivers a range of plum, cherry and strawberry fruit. A lingering cherry pit edge provides contrast on the finish.
La Pepiere Muscadet Sur-Lie ’10 France 89pts $13
Scented with green apple, lime, quarry dust, and a hint of elder flower. Low-key, soft to the touch for Muscadet, but highly refreshing; and tinged with citrus rind, crushed stone, and iodine, it finishes with mouth-watering persistence.
Pend d’Oreille Bistro Rouge 08 Washington $14
Garnet black color. Aromas of black raspberries and plum chutney with a silky, dry-yet-fruity medium-to-full body and a tangy green apple, nut, and peach skin accented finish. A fun, flavorful wine for the table.
Borsao Tres Picos Garnacha ’10 Spain 92pts $15
Deep notes of roasted herbs, sweet black cherries and raspberries, peppers and spice soar from the glass of this dark ruby/purple-tinged wine. Full-bodied, rich, ripe, silky textured, pure and long
#2: two more outstanding wines for another $5
Betz Besoleil Columbia Valley ’10 Washington $43
93pts (Tanzer): (65% grenache, 18% mourvedre, 11% cinsault and 6% syrah): Bright red. Captivating nose offers strawberry, animal fur, garrigue, black and white pepper and flowers. Wonderfully aromatic and smooth in the mouth, with excellent sappy lift to the raspberry and cherry flavors complicated by wild herbs and pepper. Finishes structured and long, with suave, slowly building tannins. Very Old World in style (and specifically southern French) but with distinctly Washington red fruit flavors.
2010 Betz “Clos de Betz” Red Wine ’10 Washington $50
94pts (Tanzer): 58% merlot, 35% cabernet sauvignon, 7% petit verdot): Bright, full red. Spicy high notes to the aromas of raspberry, graphite, sandalwood and cocoa powder. Juicy, perfumed and precise; not a fleshy style but elegant, vibrant and extremely young. Today the wine’s mid-palate flavors and texture are still a bit suppressed by the bottling, but this long, firm-edged wine has the structure and inherent material to be outstanding. In fact, I retasted the 2009 next to it, and while that wine was silkier and plusher, it is not likely to match the 2010 for complexity a few years down the road.
Lummi Island Wine Tasting March 8/9, ’13
A Brick for Every Friend!
We mentioned a couple of weeks ago that the ever-creative Island Library fundraising effort was exploring the possibility of selling engraved bricks for a “donor wall” in the new reading garden behind the fiction room. Well, folks, that plan is now a Reality!! Sometime in the next few days the FOIL website will have an online order form which you can use to place your orders, including your preference for up to three lines (up to 20 characters each line) for each brick. Alternatively, for those who just can’t wait, Pat has printed out order forms that are available immediately at the Library and here at the Wine Shop. The present goal is to sell 150 bricks ($50 apiece) for the construction fund. After that, there will be a continuing opportunity to purchase additional bricks in the future; they are a great way to help the Library, while at the same time immortalizing yourself, a family member, a pet, your business, or a poetic phrase…! (Let’s see…how about something like “I’D RATHER BE SMASHING IMPERIALISM”..!)
Just Dessert: Giovanna Madonia Chimera ’03
We poured this wine for you a couple of weeks ago. It was so delicious we sold out very quickly, but I was fortunate enough to find another case! It is 100% Albana harvested in extremely small batches, allowing the “botrytis” or “noble rot” to optimally develop on the berries. After a soft press it is fermented and matured in new French barriques for a period for 12 to 24 months, depending on the vintage. Following a micro-filtration, it is bottled, and rests for at least 1 year before release. This wine originally sold for over $30, and we have it now for $16!
Golden with copper hues; slightly viscous; intense aromatic qualities of honey, baking spice, raisins, apricot preserve and wild flowers. On the palate it offers balanced sweetness with good acidity and a dense yet extremely elegant mouth-feel, with endless aromatic qualities that keep coming back. Read more about the winery click on ‘about this winery’ in box at bottom of page
(And is this a great label, or what??!!)
Online Store Update
Okay, okay, progress is SLOW! However, I am delighted to report that there is in fact some progress to report! Last week I said I was exploring Zen Cart, which I had spent a fair amount of time exploring as far back as 2007. This week has had its share of frustrating slogging, but some hard-won progress has been made, to the point that the decision has been made to commit to the Zen Cart platform (yay, we hope!) and abandon WordPress E-Commerce (i.e., the “plugin” store to this blog) and seek our fortune in the strange world of Open Source software.
For those of you who don’t know, there is an entire world of alternatives to Microsoft and Apple and Google out there. One of our home computers runs on Ubuntu, a free Linux-bases operating system, and runs free open-source Office applications from OpenOffice.org that are in one sense like older versions of Word or Excel, except that in many ways they are better, simpler, and more reliable. One downside is that such a small percentage of home computers use Linux that big outfits like Netflix don’t bother to accommodate it. One upside is that a LOT of those users are Serious Geeks, who collaborate over time to keep improving the programs, and in the long run the quality of their products is quite likely to exceed the commercially oriented, planned obsolescence of the mainstream.
I say all this as a kind of mantra…oh, please, let it be so!...but honestly, at the moment I am still way over my head with all of this. When trapped in heavy surf, of course I get a little excited whenever I hit enough of a trough that my feet actually touch bottom for a moment, and I can take a nice big breath! (uh-oh, here comes another wave!!) So okay, there are still lots of problems to solve. But in this exploration I have gotten more clear that our primary goal is to make our site work better primarily for our “regulars,” to whom we will now be referring as “Members!” So we’re thinking about adding sections for my recommendations, Ryan’s recommendations, member recommendations….stay tuned! click: Our store at the moment…
Wine Club Launched, No Turning Back!
Last weekend was very much a milestone for us (and you), in that it was the debut of the $10 tasting. I confess it felt very strange, not sure why. But visitors who didn’t know that we had only been charging $5 for the last eight years just took it completely in stride, which makes us think “why did we wait so long?” One problem may be that we have been confused for a long time about whether this is a business, a club, or just entertaining friends. Of those, the “club” idea rings most true. It will take a few more weeks to iron out the many wrinkles (especially record-keeping!), but we are happy with the new club structure (see previous several posts), and hope you are, too.
Your Perk for this week: the above-mentioned Giovanna Madonia Chimera is reserved For Members Only!
This Week’s Tasting
We have some old and new favorites this weekend. We have a few bottles of the very popular Casterot Blanc from last summer, and the new vintage of the Hahn California pinot noir is possibly the best (and biggest!) ever. We had a bottle at Ciao Thyme recently and ordered a case for the shop the next day! The Buglioni valpolicella is a new wine for us, very smooth, very Italian, very food-worthy. We tend to like just about all the carmeneres we have tasted, and this one from Concha y Toro is a consistent classic, a lot of wine for the price. Finally, the Convento Las Claras is probably my current favorite of our many terrific Spanish offerings. My first impulse on tasting it was to hide it away because it was really good and quite limited in supply. We did manage to get several more cases in the last few weeks, however (we poured it a month or so ago), so are offering it again. This is a Really nice wine that is way underpriced at $18!
Casterot Gascogne Blanc ’10 France $10
Colombard and Ugni Blanc; Light, bright, crisp, and minerally, just the thing for Spring!
Hahn Pinot Noir ’11 California $12
Lovely aroma of ripe dark berries, lavender, baking spice and a little smoke. Smooth on the palate of black cherry and dark berries over a layer of spice and a little black pepper.
Buglioni Valpolicella Classico ’10 Italy $12
Refined, feminine personality. Sweet red berries, flowers and spices linger on the high-toned, refreshing finish.
Concha y Toro Casillero del Diablo Carmenère ’11 Chile WS88pts $11
Aromas of spice box, plum, blueberry, and lavender followed by a palate of chocolate, coffee, and spice.
Bodegas Convento Las Claras ’11 Spain 93 pts $18
100% tempranillo from vineyards dating back to 1900; dense ruby/purple color accompanied by abundant notes of pencil shavings, white chocolate, espresso roast and creme de cassis. This modern-styled Spanish, super-rich, intense red takes ripeness to the limit without sacrificing Old World nuances. Absolutely delicious!
Lummi Island Wine Tasting March 1-2 ’13
The Way of the Dodo
Like many species before it and many to follow, the Dodo was eliminated from the roster of currently living things about 400 years ago. Until then it had thrived on Mauritius, where life was so easy that it had evolved away from its ancestors’ ability to fly. Accounts of what it actually looked like are contradictory, but let us assume that it was quite dashing for its time and place, and not, as this caricature suggests, reminiscent of an albatross hooked on Crack. However, like many species it was not equipped to defend itself against humans and their animals, which first arrived with the Dutch in 1598.
Similarly, we note this weekend the passing of the long-time tradition here at the Wine Gallery of the Five Dollar Wine Tasting. Like the Dodo, we have pushed the edges of our niche as best we could, but after eight years of holding the line while wine prices have crept, little by little, up and up, we are giving in to evolutionary pressure, and raising our tasting fee from $5 to $10.
However, unlike the Dodo, the $5 tasting is not extinct for all; it will continue to be available to our Wine Club Members. Just sign up next time you visit! (See below for more info.)
Wine Club News
Lest any of our stalwart supporters fall to the ground, grief-stricken by this devastating development, we urge you to Take Heart, for the $5 tasting is not, as rumored, extinct like the Dodo for everyone, oh, non, non, non, mesdames et monsieurs! The $5 tasting will be continuing for All of our Wine Club members! Back of the envelope calculations suggest that since it costs $35 to join the Wine Club for a year, anyone who plans on tasting wine with us at least seven times a year is better off joining the Wine Club than paying the higher fee. Put that together with the other benefits of membership and joining up is Pretty Appealing! Just click on the Wine Club! link above to sign up. At some point we will have a nifty way you can pay your annual membership online, but for now just sign up online and you can ante up on your next visit!
Speaking of Online Stores
Rumor has it that the Original Principle, or whatever was around that transcended the Big Bang, or the whole Multiverse of Big Bangs, made Our Entire Cosmos in “three days,” whatever that means. I can only interpret that as meaning that creating the Universe is Easy, but creating an Online Store is more difficult! After weeks of challenges, our Web Professional has advised us to Abandon All Hope of ever getting our online store functioning on the WordPress platform. The argument is convincing, given our experience over the last few months, and the rationale heads in the general direction of “don’t expect layers of complicated platforms that are continually being redesigned for blogging to stay still long enough to build a store on.” You heard it here first, folks!
So we are giving up on WordPress Ecommerce for our online wine shop, and now trying to get up and running with an old open-source package called Zencart. I explored it some years ago, but, in full disclosure I must admit that I gave it up because it seemed way too complicated! Which leads to the insight that, well, there are different kinds of complications and some may be easier to deal with than others…although of course you never really know. So, philosophically speaking, the search for an online store that meets our balance of expense, functionality, and ease of management is pretty much like everything else we do: the best we can with the resources available.
I must admit that regardless of whether we will ever be able to pull this thing together into a functioning online store, there is a definite appeal to using open-source products like ZenCart. It is aesthetically appealing in the same way as our backroom desktop computer which is running a Linux-based operating system called Ubuntu. That is, nowadays we have the choice of buying in to the slick corporate parade of New! Upgrade! Planned Obsolescence! represented by Apple and Microsoft, or opting into a more sustainable path….for the moment, however, we do NOT have an online store. But like the empty concrete silos you see in abandoned shopping centers, the artifacts of our recent attempts are still visible… WordPress version (abandoned) Zencart version (under construction) Your thoughts? Please comment.
First Wine Club Perk!
Okay, here it is, your first Wine Club Perk! A month or two ago a gentleman contacted me looking for a wine that Robert Parker (yeah, I know, most of our crowd says Robert Who???) gave a stupendously high rating of 94 points (read: A++) despite its modest price of $16. My research revealed that the wine was not available in Washington, but was very hot in the Northeast (closest to Europe). Figuring it would all be gone before it ever hit the West Coast, I advised the gentleman that I had ordered a bunch but might never see it, so he should order it from Wherever!
All you need to know is that I bought five cases of this amazing wine, and offer it to our members at a mere $15 a bottle, this weekend only! Can’t come in this weekend? Send us an email order. Or, maybe by the time you get this it will be listed in the online store (sometime Friday!). We have tasted it, and it is both Big and Delicious; we recommend decanting for several hours.
This Week’s Wines
San Martino Prosecco Italy $11
Pale straw yellow in colour, aromatic and elegant nose (unusual in prosecco), with notes of apple and banana; pleasantly full and harmonious on the palate.
Borsao Campo de Borja ’11 Spain 88pts $11
Inky purple, mostly garnacha. 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; outstanding value.
Montes Classic Malbec ’11 Chile 88pts $11
from nearly 100-year old vines in the Colchagua valley; ripe dark cherry and creme de cassis on the nose while the palate offers ripe, chewy, dark cherry and bilberry fruit encased in fine tannins and a pure vanilla-y finish that is satisfying.
Crios de Susana Balbo Malbec ’11 Argentina 89pts $14
Good full medium ruby. Crushed blackberry, licorice and violet on the lively nose. Quite ripe and sweet in the mouth, showing impressive volume and breadth for the price range. Finishes with serious ripe tannins and noteworthy persistence.
Bodegas Triton Tempranillo Entre Suelos ’10 Spain 90pts $12
Inky purple. Sexy, oak-spiced aromas of black raspberry and cherry, with pipe tobacco and floral nuances building with air. Fleshy, supple and sweet, offering bright red and dark berry flavors and a smoky, spicy quality. Fine-grained tannins help shape the a long, smoky finish.
Lummi Island Wine Tasting February 23 ’13
Library Fund Update
Thanks to all of you who responded to our request to contribute (again!) to support the Island Library remodel and upgrade. Special thanks are extended to those friends who gave from as far away as California and Colorado–wow, your gifts are deeply appreciated!
We hope you will continue to support the project over the next few months, as there are certain to be other opportunities to help out. One idea being explored is an option to purchase engraved bricks (let’s see, one for me, one for him, one for her, some for them…!) for a possible new donor wall in the new reading garden behind the fiction room. You know the spot, right? I expect we have all noticed its potential as a Cozy Little Outdoor Room, so hey, maybe it will have a brick wall with your name on it!
I expect there will be some folks, who have already given generously, who might like an acknowledging brick or two for earlier donations. Oh, would that that were practical…but hello, it’s a fundraiser, so, no, it’s not! Fortunately, bricks will be quite inexpensive (around $50 each), so we’ll all just have to dig a little deeper for a little dab of brick-and-mortar immortality…! Stay tuned!
Wine Club Update
After months of suggestions, planning sessions, false starts, confusion, software glitches, opinions, and endless discussions (whew!), our Wine Club is now a Reality! Sure, it’s just barely off the ground, tapocketing on just a cylinder or two, and struggling for altitude, but it is officially launched! HURRAY! At present we have six (count’em!) official members! To find out more just click on the WINE CLUB! link at the top of this blog page (or here if you are reading this as an email.) The centerpiece of the club is the “punch card,” which, as it turns out, isn’t really a “punch card” at all. Rather, it’s more of a “OMD, how much have I spent this time” card, and we will keep the cards on file here at the wine shop, so you don’t have to worry about losing or forgetting them. There is a series of three cards (white, rose, and red), as described at the above link. When you buy wine, we mark the back of the card with the amount of the purchase. As each card is filled, you get a prize and the benefits of the next card. Check it out, and let us know what you think. And better yet, sign up and be part of it!
Shamelessly speaking, one of the reasons for structuring our club this way is to make it worth your while to spend a larger proportion of your wine budget with us. I mean, let’s face it, we all know you cheat on us! (Haggen’s, Trader Joe’s, Costco…tsk, tsk…have you no shame at all?) Sure, when you’re with us you act as we’re the Only Ones, as if you bought all your wine here, but (as we know only too well) we were NOT born anywhere close to yesterday. Oh non, non, non monsieur, we are now officially engaged in the knock-down, drag-out battle for your hard-earned wine dollars! Is there a wine you buy elsewhere that we don’t carry? Let us know, and we will get it to you for less! Something you buy elsewhere by the case? Special order it from us! We will do our best to meet anyone’s prices, AND save you a trip to town. We are, like, SO here for you! THAT’S what our club is about!
Another primary benefit of our wine club, of course, is our connection to Ryan’s new import business, which will bring to our doorstep some of the French wines that many of you tasted on your tour with him last spring, or will be enjoying on the tour this spring. We will have Washington exclusives on these wines, and will be able to offer them to our members at “futures” prices at preview tastings just for our members! (No, honestly, I am not making this up!)
Online Store Update
Okay, okay, I admit it. The truth is that nobody actually said it was going to be easy. After fifteen years or so of working on various websites, I just assumed it would be easy. Well, I was wrong about that! Big Time! Somehow, in the last few years the Web has “evolved” (not so sure about that) on a path of exponentially increasing complexity. The way my old economist’s mind views this is that we are way, way, way past “diminishing returns,” with this web thing, but there it is, the endless battalions of geeks just keep adding more and more complexity. For some many years when I needed some new software to deal with some growing set of issues or problems, the Universe was still small enough that I could find a handful, try them out, evaluate, and possibly choose one.
Nowadays there are no simple web pages. WordPress, the software system in which I am writing this blog at this very moment, consists of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of files. Some files have information. Some files define the kinds of information that can be included. Some files tell the server how to configure the information it sends to the user. Some files tell the user’s computer how to present the information. Hello, once it was just a document with a few instructions about how to present some information visually, and yes, a part of me does long for those simpler times.
I’m just saying that the online store is proving challenging, even now that I have engaged a Professional to make it all work. It is curiously reassuring that if SHE has challenges figuring it all out, NO WONDER I can’t do it! Still, it IS frustrating, feeling that one ought to be able to do something, yet finding progress elusive. Perhaps this is an interesting legacy of the Web– on the one hand it is the world’s Open Forum; on the other hand, why then should we be surprised that it so often manifests as Chaos?
Nevertheless (which is what I suppose people really mean when they say, “that said,” and then contradict everything they have just said….what’s that about?!) here we are, and I can report that progress is being made with the online store. Please stay tuned…
This week’s tasting
Giovanna Madonia Chimera ’03 Italy $16
Honeyed, tropical, and with intriguing scents of caramel and dried apricots; combines luscious sweetness with bracing and refreshing acidity.
Montes Classic Cabernet Sauvignon ’10 Chile $10
Medium- to full-bodied; delivers solid varietal character, with cassis, ripe plum, graphite and medium tannins adding grip to the finish.
Langmeil Three Gardens SMG ’09 Australia $16
Rich, silky-smooth, and round, delivering a generous wave of red berry, cherry, spice and licorice that plays out through a long, harmonious finish. Shiraz, Grenache and Mourvèdre.
Tarima Hill Monastrell ’09 Spain 91pts $14
100% old vines monastrell; Opaque ruby color; powerful cherry and cassis aromas, intense dark berry flavors, with spice and violet pastille notes; gains sweetness and depth on the subtly tannic, very long finish of smoky mineral and floral notes.
2072 Granger Way
