Lummi Island Wine Tasting Presidents’ Day Weekend February 16 ’13
Library Fundraising Drive Continues!
We have heard from many of you that our blog last week was helpful in raising awareness about the challenge and opportunity the library remodel project represents to our community. While no one took us up (yet!) on our offer of purchase credit to anyone committing to four months of online donations, we DID sell about $75 worth of Pat’s special chocolate mendiants (SO delicious!) and helped stimulate numerous cash donations. In addition, thanks to those who stepped up to sponsor about $1000 of individual doors, windows, and bookcases with targeted pledges (each with commemorative plaque!) Btw, there are still lots of opportunities for “adopt-a-furnishing;” ranging from children’s stools @$75 each to solar (skylight) tubes @$750 each…stop by the shop this weekend and check out the options!
In case you missed it, let us reiterate our offer from last week: you donate, we give you a treat!
- Go to the FOIL Website;
- Click on “Donate” at the top of the page;
- Select one of the “monthly donation options” from the dropdown list (dig deep, my friends, dig deep!);
- Hit the Subscribe button and complete the form
- Print out your receipt (Important for what happens next)!
- Bring your receipt to Artisan Wine Gallery this weekend and enjoy a Token of Appreciation:
| Your monthly donation |
Your credit at the wine shop |
| $10 | $3 |
| $25 | $5 |
| $50 | $10 |
| $100 | $20 |
Presidents’ Day
The celebration of Washington’s Birthday (February 22, 1732–nearly 300 years ago) began during Washington’s last year in office as the nation’s first President, 1796. It became an occasion for celebratory events that has continued since, becoming an official national holiday in 1880. Lincoln’s Birthday was February 12, and was first honored nationally the year after his assassination in 1865, but was never anointed as an actual National Holiday. In 1968, however, the observance of Washington’s Birthday was decreed as the third Monday in February, beginning in 1971. This new holiday, now floating arbitrarily between February 15 and February 21, has also become known more generically as “Presidents’ Day,” maybe because it never falls exactly on either the 12th or the 22nd, but constantly oscillates between them. To make matters even more confusing, by the standards of the calendars in use during Washington’s life, his actual birthday was February 11! In any case it isn’t every day that a bunch of dudes get together and, like, start a new country, so it is probably fitting that at least one of them should have a commemorative holiday, and posterity (ours truly) is annually grateful for a three-day holiday in February. Read more
Valentine’s Day Origins
While some believe that Valentine’s Day is celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine’s death or burial–which probably occurred around A.D. 270–others claim that the Christian church may have decided to place St. Valentine’s feast day in the middle of February in an effort to “Christianize” the pagan celebration of Lupercalia. Celebrated at the ides of February, or February 15, Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus. Now THIS sounds more like it; after all, most long-established holidays date back to the seasonal rituals of our agrarian
ancestors thousands of years ago. Supposedly in some places, young women would place their names in a big urn; to be picked by and paired with local bachelors for the coming year. Oh, those pagans!
Now, however, instead of rutting in fields or sacrificing goats, all of that has been replace with an estimated 1 billion printed Valentine’s Day cards sent each year. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that somewhere, somehow, something important to our human nature went terribly, terribly wrong…! Read more
This Week’s Wines: Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina!
Crios de Susana Balbo Torrontes ’11 Argentina $14
Enticing aromas of peach, melon, floral, and tropical fruit. Medium-bodied, dry, savory, and nicely proportioned, this lengthy effort
Manos Negras pinot noir ’09 Argentina $14
From Patagonia; Native fermented in 20% new barrels, showing toasty oak, earthy mineral, rose petal, cherry, and raspberry aromas and an elegant, smooth-textured, varietally correct Pinot with good balance and length.
Baguala Malbec ’08 Argentina $8
Rich, elegant, and full-bodied, with ripasso-like notes of raisins, cassis, and a dash of bitters.
Colome Amalaya ‘09 Argentina $14
From one of the highest and most remote vineyards in the world (8000 ft). Cherry liqueur, menthol, violet and spicy oak on the nose and palate. Suave, supple and energetic, with a sugar/acid balance giving the mid-palate insidious intensity and good definition. Nicely rising, fine-grained finish shows good length and a light touch. Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Tannat.
Lummi Island Library Benefit Wine Tasting Valentine Week ’13
Getting Serious About Our Library Fund
As most of you now know, the Island Library is long overdue for upgrading. The original home that was purchased by FOIL (Friends of the Island Library –– essentially all of us) back in the mid-nineties took several years to pay off. Lots of necessary upgrades were postponed to an indefinite future. Fifteen years later, a remodel design has painstakingly evolved that incorporates building code and access issues, needs for a more functional children’s space and “teen room,” necessary electrical upgrades to support modern information technology, and public meeting facilities for island organizations. Construction can begin when the target budget of $200,000 has been raised, and we are close enough that one final push can make it possible!!! And You can help!!!
Take The Pledge and “Wine” a Prize !
Being “joined at the hip” to a long-time member of FOIL, I can tell you that for the past year your little committee of bookophiles has put in many hundreds of hours (I am not exaggerating even a little bit) struggling to raise the funds to make your new Library a reality. Thanks to their tireless efforts and many generous donors, the project is now within $40,000 of reaching its target...Huzzah! Well done, both volunteers and donors!!
At this point my personal thought after seeing how hard a few people have worked for us all, and how generously a few people have donated for us all, is that it would be really nice if the rest of the funds could be pledged right now, without FOIL members’ having to invent, plan, organize, and realize yet another event. Non, non, non, mes amis, I think it’s time for the rest of us to dig deep and get this thing over the top! Right? Are ya with me? The Really Simple way to make this happen is for ALL OF US to pledge a small, painless Monthly Donation for just the next four months (through May). Come on, people, let’s just DO this!
Here’s all you have to do:
- Go to the FOIL Website;
- Click on “Donate” at the top of the page;
- Select one of the “monthly donation options” from the dropdown list (dig deep, my friends, dig deep!);
- Hit the Subscribe button and complete the form
- Print out your receipt (Important for what happens next)!
- Bring your receipt to Artisan Wine Gallery to collect a Token of Appreciation! (see below)
Valentine’s Day Week at Artisan Wine Gallery
If YOU make a pledge, WE will thank you! Along with many of you, we have committed ourselves to bringing the library renovation to fruition, and we are actively recruiting everyone who has an interest in our community, in books, in reading, or in literacy to join in this community effort. In gratitude for your support, we are happy to offer you a small “merci” to acknowledge your generosity. Just bring in your receipt from your online donation by Feb 16, and get a little credit for it:
| Your monthly donation |
Your credit at the wine shop! |
| $10 | $3 |
| $25 | $5 |
| $50 | $10 |
| $100 | $20 |
Our Own Chocolate Mendiants: another way to enjoy giving!
Curiously, the French term mendiant means “beggar.” So it seems entirely appropriate to offer Pat’s handmade Artisan Wine Gallery chocolate mendiants as part of our fundraising effort. Each mendiant is made in the traditional style, a disc of intense French chocolate dotted with a different combination of cashews, pecans, raisins, cranberries, pineapple, papaya, and ginger, and Oh, My, are they good! And all proceeds go to, you guessed it, the Library Fund!
$10 per individually wrapped pack of two
Masquerade Wine Company
This afternoon I was in Bellingham for errands (amazing how rarely I go to town anymore!) and found myself in the neighborhood of Masquerade Wine Company on Iowa Street. You may recall that the owners, Bill and Jennifer Kimmerly, did a tasting of their wines with us last June when we hosted a leg of the Schooner Zodiac’s Wine Tour of the San Juans. It was great fun! So today I tasted through many of their new releases, and I have brought home to you a case of their just barely released 2009 Red Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon.
I mean, this is so freshly bottled that I had to put the labels on myself (kinda fun, actually!). Their 2005 cab was a big hit with me– a very alluring, feminine style; and the 2007 cab was popular with almost everyone…we sold out rather quickly. This one, the 2009, has the soft complexity of the 2005 along with the staying power of the 2007, and I’m thinking this may be their best wine so far! So in honor of this new arrival, we will be featuring several of the Masquerade wines in this weekend’s tastings!
This Week’s Wines
Masquerade Viognier ’11 Washington $16
A luscious and full bodied wine, off-dry with slightly less than 1% residual sugar. Aromas and flavors of white peach, apple, and Asian pear, balanced with a hint of grassiness and an enticing aroma of lavender.
Masquerade Syrah ’07 Washington $22
From Burgess Vineyard in Pasco, this syrah is substantial, fruity, and crisp, a great accompaniment to winter fare.
Masquerade Cabernet Sauvignon Red Mountain ’09 Washington $28
This just-released cab combines the best elements of their soft, alluring, somewhat feminine ’05 cab (which I preferred) and the more structured, robust, and popular ’07; like an orchestra with every instrument in its place, this lovely wine will seduce you with its harmony of flavor, texture, balance, and length. Very, very nice.
Masquerade Gewürztraminer ’11 Washington $13
This floral, fragrant dry wine exhibits flavors reminiscent of pineapple and passion fruit, with a seductive aroma of spice, clove, and rosewater. Great match with Thai or Indian food!
Lummi Island Wine Tasting Groundhog Day ’13
Groundhog Day
This movie is such a cultural icon I just assume that Everyone has seen it at least once. The basic idea is compelling: that you get to live the same day over and over– always remembering how things turned out– and you can make adjustments to your decisions to see how that would affect outcomes. And at some level we all agree that, yes, it would be Very Cool to be able to do that!
I am also reminded of an obscure line from The Unbearable Lightness of Being, in which the main character says something to the effect that life is “light” exactly because we can’t do things over and over to eventually choose the behavior with the best outcome. Oh, non, non, non, monsieur! You just get the one shot at everything, and that’s it!
So Groundhog Day has always been one of my favorite days, because:
- it is, as we have often mentioned, one of four very special “cross-quarter days;”
- The “sees his shadow” thing appeals to our deep distrust of the annoying randomness of our lives;
- Let’s face it, the whole idea is completely zany, and we all need a lot more of “zany” in our lives.
Wine Club Reflections
This picture of Mary Beth from last week illustrates the elusive nature of bringing our Wine Club to fruition. It is slowly taking form like the reflection in the window (people at the other end of the bar…click image for larger view)…there’s definitely Wine Club energy here trying to manifest, but materialization remains elusive…!
Never fear, however, help is on the way. After spinning wheels for another week trying to grok the programming necessary to make wine club and wine store software work correctly, I finally understood enough about the problem to accept that I am not willing to put in the time and effort required to become a programmer. Therefore I have happily engaged a local professional to help us out. Hopefully she will, like the rest of us, “work for wine!” Stay tuned!
In the meantime, you can still sign up for the wine club online by clicking on the WINECLUB! link at the top of the page, and following the instructions.
Supporters and Sustainers
It was a quiet night in the wine shop…so quiet the drip-drip-drip of rain leaking from the drainpipe put your teeth on edge…so quiet…
Seriously, last Friday night Ryan opened the shop as usual at 4; Janice and David came shortly after with her latest loaf of fresh bread to share (pretty much every Friday night, and you don’t really need another reason to come by!); Pat and I were there as usual, because, like, it’s an Island, and wtf else would we do…?
Do not suppose, however, that low attendance had a negative effect on the animated, salonic (if that’s not a real word, it should be!) topic of whether our Wine Club should have more than one level of membership. Surely we don’t want to discriminate against people who live off-island, or who just don’t drink four bottles of wine a month, and so on. All agreed to some extent that there is something important about this question, something about inclusion and community, but, alas, there was no agreement at all about what the “different levels” of the Artisan Wine Club should look like, beyond the obvious notion that the bigger your commitment, the greater should be your reward. On the more practical hand, our financial survival requires us to challenge the notion that Trader Joe’s can do anything for you that we can’t do better.
Which brings me to tonight’s little Insight about all of this: we are happy to acknowledge both supporting members and sustaining members, and grateful for both. The difference in the two levels is fundamentally about commitment. From our perspective, the more of your wine budget you spend with us, the better off we are; from your perspective, the less you spend on wine overall, the better off you are. Obviously, the goal is to make it worth your while to buy more of your wine from us. So there is a contradiction: how can we encourage you to buy more of your wine from us? Is it about: Prices? Convenience? Service? Trust? Selection? What do YOU think?
This Week’s Wines
Nera ‘La Novella’ nebbiolo ’11 Italy $15
This unusual white (nebbiolo is typically a red wine) offers surprising complexity: zesty lemon cream, yellow apple, and white grapes, with a touch of nut skin, white pepper, and dusty earth.
Palama Negroamaro 08 (Italy) $10
Elegantly expansive, rich and robust. Although it is 100% “rustic” Negroamaro, it is amazingly balanced; silky mouthfeel, aromas of violets, plums, fresh ground pepper and blackberry jam with accents of cinnamon, leather, tobacco and smoke.
Palacios Rioja Crianza la Montesa ’08 Spain WA91pts $17
55% Tempranillo, 35% Garnacha and 10% Mazuelo, it has an uncomplicated, vanilla-tinged bouquet with ripe wild strawberry and cranberry fruit. The palate is medium-bodied with succulent tannins and the oak is well-integrated, lending structure and backbone on the finish.
Boomtown Syrah ’08 Washington $17
Second label from Dusted Valley; deep ruby-garnet color and complex aromas of black currants with smoky notes. On the palate rich and nicely concentrated with good structure, balance, and velvety tannins.
Lummi Island Wine Tasting January 26 ’13
Wine Club Progress
We have Good News and Bad News about the Wine Club. The good news is that we think the software is set up adequately to kick this thing off and let you sign up. The bad news is that we haven’t figured out how to make your page look nice, but what the heck, we can keep working on that. For now we are already planning wine club events and the first samples of Ryan’s new import wines have arrived (see below), so we feel some pressure to, um, pull the cork on the new Artisan Wine Club! YAY!
How To Join the Artisan Wine Club
1. Click on the “WINE CLUB!” link at the top of the page.
2. Read the terms of membership.
3. Fill in your name and email address and click the “Sign Up” button.
4. A web page will be created automatically where you can update information about your wine preferences, which we will use in our wine purchase decisions.
5. You will receive an email with a link to your wine club page. You should save the link so you can access the page in the future. (Should you lose the link, no worry, you can sign up again using the same name and email and you will be sent an email with the same code.)
6. Use the link whenever you like to go back to your page and answer the various questions about your wine preferences.
First Wine Samples Arrive from France!
As many of you already know, particularly those of you who went on Ryan’s wine tour in the Languedoc last spring, he has been developing a way to bring some of those wines here, I mean Right Here to Our Shop. This turns out to involve a cast of thousands scattered from France to Rhode Island (Hey, I went to grad school there!) to Washington to Lummi Island. Since the details are even harder to explain than to comprehend, we will spare you the burden. The important take-away here is that it is nearly time for the first Artisan Wine Club Import Tasting…for Members Only, of course!
That is to say, in the next month or so we hope to kick off our Wine Club with our first, members-only, free wine tasting event, where you can taste and pre-order more than a dozen different wines that are EXCLUSIVE to our members! How about THAT? Stay tuned for details!
You will notice below TWO wine lists for this weekend’s tastings. The first tasting will include some of these French samples. However we only have ONE BOTTLE of each of the four wines. Most likely, that means they won’t last till Saturday, when we will probably pour different wines, also listed below. Those of you who went on the Languedoc tour last spring will recognize some of the wines, and here is your chance to taste them again! Those of you who did NOT go on the tour, this is your first chance to taste them! Either way, our recommendation is to come by tonight (1/25) if you can!
Love the New Camera!
Okay, it’s true, the photos on the page today may not have much to do with the paragraph they accompany. But this is really the first outing of our new camera after the old one bit the dust a few months ago after over a decade of faithful service. Regardless of what you might think about the compositions of the photos, try clicking on them to open the larger versions. Pretty amazing!
This Week’s Tasting #1 (previews of France!)
Chateau de Rayssac Cabardes 2009
Complexe et élégant; La bouche suave et veloutée aux arômes de fruits noirs profonds enchantera les amateurs de vins fins. Ses
tannins mûrs et fondus lui permettent d’être dégusté dès à présent ou conservé dans votre cave. Sur la table, il s’accordera
parfaitement avec le gibier et les viandes rouges, les fromages forts, les plats à base de truffe ou de champignons.
Chateau de Rayssac “Côté Ouest 2010
L’influence des vents atlantiques ainsi que sa dominance l’ont probablement façonné comme le vin le plus accessible de notre gamme. Clair et rond avec une bouche souple, il serait en parfaite adéquation avec du poulet, de la cuisine italienne… et des amis !
Chateau de Rayssac “Essential” 2009
La couleur rubis, ses arômes de mûres et ses tannins fermes sont incorporés dans un vin corsé et souple. L’attaque est franche et conduit à une finition onctueuse, grâce à un mélange équilibré de fruits et d’épices.
Domaine Gavoty Melopée Rosé 2011 ( I love this wine…and the description, too!)
“Our most fragile child is the one we care for most dearly; it is provocative by nature, revealing flavours that none of our other wines could hope to equal. It sublimates the garlic in a “Pesto” sauce, and exasperates our taste buds, raising the spices and sweet-and-sour flavours of a lamb curry to new heights. It cultivates contrast through its freshness, elegance and structure.
This Week’s Tasting #2 (when the #1’s are empty!)
Peirano Viognier ’10 California $12
Peaches, pineapple, and tropical fruit are complemented by the scent of lemons and ginger, and balanced by flavors of apples, pears and orange marmalade.
Pugliano Treggiaia 09 Italy $10
A smooth and satisfying blend of sangiovese, canniolo & cab, serious but friendly, delightful with anything from pizza to lamb chops.
Peirano Cabernet Sauvignon ’09 California $12
Aromas are a compendium of blackberry, black raspberry, and currant, with elements of toasty oak, chocolate, dark roasted coffee bean, sage, and spices. A sip fills the mouth with blackberry pie, black cherries, sweet oak and white pepper.
Idilico Garnacha ’10 Washington $18
From two highly regarded Washington vineyards (Upland and Elerding); fermented in small lots and barrel aged in neutral French oak; bottled unfined and unfiltered; exhibits aromas of tart cherry, strawberry jam, moist rock and citrus; full bodied with luscious mouthfeel and a lingering finish. Only 240 cases produced.
2072 Granger Way