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lummi island wine tasting july 15 ’16
(note: some photos will enlarge when clicked)
Friday Breads (email us to get on the preorder mailing list! )
This week’s breads all feature pre-fermented dough (PFD), in which some of the dough is fermented slowly overnight then added to the final dough mix to kickstart enzymatic activity.
Whole Wheat – similar to last weeks whole wheat sourdough, but this bread has close to 50% of fresh milled whole wheat as well as bread flour. When using whole grains I add a little honey to help balance the flavor. A good all around bread – $5/loaf.
Rosemary Olive Oil – mostly bread flour with about 15% white whole wheat, which is naturally a bit sweeter than red w.w. and it keeps the crumb a bit lighter. This bread has a crisp crust and tender crumb from the olive oil. A little fresh rosemary from the garden gives it a really nice flavor. – $5/loaf.
Oh, and did we mention– pastry this week is…Ooh la la, pastry Provencal:
Gibassier – –starts with a rich dough full of eggs, butter and sugar. Then incorporates the flavors of Provence, olive oil, orange flower water and fresh squeezed orange juice, fresh and candied orange peel and anise seed. After baking each one is brushed with melted butter and rolled in sugar. My oh my!- 2/$5
Tough Week
Our experiences this past week bring us to wonder yet again what is it about human beings that allows us to kill all kinds of living things just because they are a little, how shall we put it…Inconvenient. And even more disturbing, when we decide to Kill Something, Our Dear Species can get Disturbingly creative. In the case of Rat Poison, the currently favored chemical concoctions are designed to rob the pesky rodents’ blood of the ability to coagulate. So when you put out that little box of D-Con, you are inviting your cousins of a common ancestor to a tasty meal which will destroy the clotting ability of their blood supply so it oozes right through their veins and arteries, through their tissue and organs, bleeding them to death right inside their own bodies. Essentially they suffocate from lack of oxygen. Yes, folks, this chemical cocktail is brought to you by the same folks that invented Drawing and Quartering, Garroting, and the rest of it. WTF is Wrong with us???
We mention all of this because last Monday morning our generally feisty and cheerful dog Cooper was suddenly disoriented, listless, and nearly limp. A subsequent afternoon at the vet’s followed by a night at the Animal Emergency Center in Bellingham led to a diagnosis of Rat Poison ingestion. The bad news is that we very nearly lost him. The good news is that the caring professionalism and accurate diagnoses of a number of veterinarians, especially that first night, identified the likely cause, hastened to apply the appropriate treatments, and brought him Back from the Brink so that after a pretty Scary week we could bring him home this afternoon, mostly out of the woods, but with lots of healing to go. Whew!
We are deeply Grateful for the help, skill, and kindness of all of the docs who played a role in Coopie’s rescue. We are also, of course, scratching our heads and Worried about the source of the Poison. One Great Big Takeaway from this experience is that Rat Poison is like a Nuke that Blows Up inside the animals that ingest it. The Newer Generation poisons can stay in an animal’s system for up to a month, so they can also linger in the environment for an extended period putting all nearby creatures at risk. Bottom Line: If you Must Kill mice and rats, PLEASE find another way that is precisely targeted, quick, and safe for untargeted animals. PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE!
Soave
For some reason soave is one of those wines we have seen from the corners of our eyes in wine shops and grocery stores throughout our lives. Though it is a “mainstay” Italian white wine, most of us seldom run into it. Unless by accident. Which is what happened last week, when I got a phone call from a distributor who was delivering two cases of wine that I didn’t remember ordering. My guess was that they were the remaining few cases missing from our Italian order which had come in the week before. So I signed and wrote the check, only later discovering that I had never even heard of the wine, and as I write tonight I still have no idea how this wine got here. Karma, maybe…? Anyway, we opened one bottle last weekend and poured it for a few people, who liked it and bought some. So we kept it, and are offering it as part of our regular tasting this weekend. It has engaging aromas and flavors with subtle yet refreshing acidity.
It turns out that Soave is a Poster Child for the battle between small, family producers and gigantic mega-producers. The reason we all remember seeing it on shelves all these years is because some producers made millions of cases a year, deeply compromising the quality of the vineyards, the fruit, and the wine. At the same time, however, many small, family wineries made only a few thousand bottles a year, focusing on traditional methods of farming and winemaking. Soave is made from the Garnega grape, which generally produces nicely balanced wines with a fresh, naturally rich consistency, dry minerality, and flavors of stone fruits, honey, and dried sage.
Friction
Basically, everything that exists can move relative to everything else that exists. When that happens, surfaces in contact resist relative lateral motion with each other. This resistance is called “friction.” Between non-moving surfaces, friction is a measure of resistance to the initiation of relative movement and kinetic friction measures the resistance to movement between moving surfaces. I vaguely remember all of this from my freshman (i.e., “Plebe Year) course in structural engineering.
Such considerations have increasing Relevance lately because we have recently returned our boat Dreamtime to the Island for Mooring. There have ensued a number of Complicated Miscalculations, ranging from “our anchor line is not ready to deploy, let’s use this ’empty mooring’ just for tonight” (guy came back about 10pm, yes it was Ugly and Very Mea Culpa), to “that anchor line looked perfectly fine, why is our boat Adrift again???!!”
Presently we are camped out on our Friend Ray’s mooring while his boat is undergoing Some Kind of Surgery, and will soon move to our Friend Hal’s mooring, which has just today been Repaired and Renewed. The important observation of the moment, however, is that after only a Few Days of Friction between our Two Bowlines and the Steel Ring atop the Mooring Ball, there are already Disturbing Signs of Unsustainable Wear where bowline meets mooring ring. In the Larger Picture, all of this reinforces the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which, roughly speaking, says that No One has been Winding the Universal Watch since the Big Bang, and probably won’t anytime soon. Bottom Line: any kind of Sustainability requires continually taking steps to Reduce Friction ever further.
This week’s wine tasting
San Rocco Soave ’15 Italy $10
Beautiful aromas lemon, green apple and fresh apricots. The palate is fresh and clean with beautiful citrus and apple flavors with hints of almond. A great summer wine! Summer wine.
Palama Arcangelo Rosato ’11 Italy $11
100% Negroamaro from Puglia at the hot dry heel of the Italian Boot; big for a rosato– bright, lush, and succulent, with aromas of wild strawberries, crisp acidity, and loads of flavor.
Marchetti Rosso Conero ’13 Italy $10
Rich and inviting aromas of blue florals, plums, brown spices, and hillside brush. On the palate, dry and round textured with red and black cherries, ripe blackberries, cocoa and spice. Culminates in a satisfying, lengthy finish.
Poderi Elia, Dolcetto d’Alba ’11 Italy $12
Clean, stinging rhubarb, pleasant toastiness, and bright red fruits with a nice touch of sweet cigar smokiness. Very smooth, with “cashmere” tannins; a perfect example of classic Piemonte style for an everyday wine.
Perazzeta Erio Supertuscan ’13 Italy $16
An established favorite around here, this sangiovese-cab-syrah blend from Tuscany (we also carry their olive oil!) is rich and concentrated but also balanced, fruity, and delicious–a classic Italian food wine!
lummi island wine tasting july 8 ’16
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Friday Breads (email us to get on the preorder mailing list! )
Whole Wheat Levain – This bread is made with bread flour, fresh milled whole wheat and a bit of fresh milled rye for great flavor. A good all around bread – $5/loaf.
Le Pave d’autrefois – loosely translates as “old paving stones…” a mix of bread flour, fresh milled whole wheat, rye and buckwheat flour. The darkness of the whole grains and square shape make it look like old paving stones, but the flavor is full of whole grain goodness – $5/loaf.
And, of course Pastry this week–>
Chocolate Babka Rolls!! – starts with a rich sweet roll dough dough full of eggs, butter and sugar,. Rolled out, spread with chocolate filling, rolled up and cut into individual slices before baking. Delicious – 2/$5
The Italians are back!
It is now a local tradition near each Solstice– the arrival of our semiannual special order shipment from our friends at West Seattle importer Small Vineyards. As most of you know, they specialize in family-owned wineries mainly in Italy, but in recent years also in France and Spain. Many of their member wineries have been handing down traditional methods of farming and winemaking for generations. Virtually all of the SV imports vastly outperform their modest prices, and we always look forward to their arrival.
This weekend we are offering one old favorite and two new wines. The old favorite is the Perazzeta Sara Rosato, a delicious rosé made from sangiovese grosso, the grape that made Brunello di Montalcino one of the most sought-after wines on the planet for the last hundred years. In addition, this weekend’s Italian representatives also include Cannonau, which is basically grenache (a French Southern Rhone varietal) grown in Sardinia, which adds its own distinctive and lingering notes of pomegranate and wool to the more familiar cherry. And, continuing the theme of French varietals grown in Italy, we will be pouring a delightful cabernet sauvignon from the Veneto region of Italy (no, I am not making this up!).
Corrosion
Many of you will recall that last year at the end of August our new little boat Dreamtime was blown off her mooring, washed onto a rocky shore, and took quite a Beating before being Rescued. and Secured. As mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Dreamtime is back in the water, and last Sunday our friend and small-boat sailor extraordinaire Toby and I sailed her back to Lummi Island. It was a good trip, though as you might imagine, fraught with a bit of tension as we tested rigging, power, and electrical connections, and sailed her back home to Lummi Island.
The point that needs emphasizing it that Dreamtime was almost completely submerged for a few hours at a time over several days.
The basic chemistry (I admit being a little “rusty..”!!) of corrosion is (supposedly) shown in the accompanying chart. All you need to know is that all metals and alloys in contact with seawater have a specific electrical potential dependent on the specific pH of that seawater relative to the original material. ranging from Totally Inert to Catastrophically Explosive…you know, just like Human relationships\! That is, electrons are, like, the Ficklest of Particles, ever ready to migrate to higher-charged social levels. So of course we can all like Totally Relate, huh…? Anyway, we are now going through Dreamtime’s various systems, replacing a light fixture here, a circuit breaker there, or wiring both here and there depending on whether the corrosion demands cleaning, replacement, or complete rewiring. In other words, it’s not that different from the Everyday Concerns of All of Us past a Certain Age…!
Justice
It is starting to appear that Justice is the Name of the Game as we approach the Election of Aught-Sixteen. If we consider that there is always a Tension between Polar Opposites (I am So Drawn to you but I Know you will Hurt Me!), then it should he no surprise that the Fundamental Polarity emerging from the American Political Sector this season is between the Right (we must destroy All the Villages to save the Country) and the Left ( we must Save Every Village to have a Country worth Saving!).
This week, nearly Every Day has brought news of yet more Deaths-by-Fanatic, whether by Radical Muslim, Radical Anti-Radical Muslim, Emotionally Undertrained Policemen, or your Garden Variety Sexually Repressed Young Males (not that they are necessarily mutually exclusive). All you need to know is that a study many decades ago ( I believe it involved Margaret Mead) concluded that the two most highly correlated (and therefore most predictive) variables with the Level of Violence in a Society were a: the amount of affectionate touching of infants (more infant touching–> less violence) and the age of availability of sexual unions (the younger the availability, the less violent the society.)
There IS a grain of truth here. Although effective and realistic policy might prove elusive, we cannot dismiss the idea that if more young men had more sex more often, violence in our society might very well take a well-deserved vacation.
This week’s wine tasting
Terra Blanca Red Mountain Chardonnay ’15 Washington $11
Bright aromas of red apple lead to flavors of Fuji apples, mango, pineapple, and a hint of citrus. Barrel fermentation adds body to to the vibrant acid backbone
and leads to a clean and refreshing finish.
Perazzeta Sara Rosato ’15 Italy $14
From the same grape as Brunello (sangiovese grosso), this beautiful rosato is rich, bold, and flinty while also crisp, summery, and light.
Sanguineti Cannonau de Sardegna ’14 Italy $11
This cannonau– a Sardinian varietal known elsewhere as grenache– offers dry and dusty aromas and flavors of cherry, pomegranate and plum that leave lingering, crisp, earthy and briny flavors that beg for food.
Lovo Cabernet Veneto ’15 Italy $11
A new Italian face on a familiar varietal, this surprisingly tasty cabernet is unoaked, bright, clean, and zesty.
Tarima Hill Monastrell ’13 Spain $14
Complex, perfumed scents of dark berry liqueur, cola, incense and smoky oak spices. Plush and expansive, with sweet cherry compote and blueberry flavors with notes of floral pastille and bitter chocolate. Rich and lively, finishing with excellent power, smooth tannins and a late jolt of allspice.
lummi island wine tasting june 17 ’16
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Friday Breads (email us to get on the preorder mailing list! )
Oops! Janice has been away this week, so no bread pickup this Friday. Look for her pre-order email in your box Sunday or Monday for next week’s offerings…!
Rosé Season!
Yes, folks, the rosé shrine at the top of the stairs now now displays about about ten different rosés. Yesterday and today have qualified as Perfect Rosé Days– sunny with lots of big puffy white clouds accenting lots of clear Blue Sky, temperatures perfect (pushing 70), a light breeze, everything in Full Bloom.
Nothing beats a pre-dinner glass of rosé on the deck on days like these. Raise your glasses to the Magic of Summer and repeat after me: “Ahhhhhhhhhhhh…!”
Mont Sainte-Victoire
This week’s rosé is from a region about 25 km east of Aix en Provence, and just south of the base of Mont Sainte-Victoire, a favorite subject of Paul Cezanne, who lived in Aix. Apparently Cezanne became enamored with the mountain on a train ride across the bridge near the foot of the mountain in 1878, and subsequently did numerous paintings of it. In most of them the railroad bridge, with its many Roman arches, can be seen in the landscape…can you find it?
Provence, of course, has set the standard for the style of rosé that has become immensely popular around the US in recent years, and this wine is a typical blend of 35% Grenache, 30% Cinsault, 25% Syrah, and 10% Rolle (aka the smooth and flavorful Italian grape vermentino).
The Underground Wine Project
The “Underground Wine Project” is a collaboration among Mark McNeilly and Mike MacMorran of Mark Ryan Winery and Trey Busch of Sleight of Hand Cellars. We first met Trey some years ago when he was winemaker for Basel Cellars in Walla Walla, which is still worth a visit next time you are in Walla Walla, if only for the curiously overstated decor. We also attended a wine dinner back in those days at Oyster Creek down Chuckanut Drive featuring wines from Basel with Trey there to pour them. In particular I remember that he had hastily bottled (and not yet filtered or labeled) some of his newest white blend, called “Forget Me Not,” a traditional White Bordeaux blend of sauvignon blanc and semillon.
All you need to know is that raw oysters have always been a bit challenging for me, but with the Right Wine I can heartily enjoy at least a few. And in my modest experience, the “Right Wine” definitely involves sauvignon blanc, and it is a toss-up whether the best pairing is with a White Bordeaux (blend of sauv blanc and semillon) or the straight, minerally, sea-scented sauvignon blancs from the little area at the eastern end of the Loire Valley, including Sancerre, Quincy or Reuilly. The common thread seems to be that ancient soil, rich in millions-of-years old seashells, still sing a salty song of open ocean that resonates Mightily with the Briny Oyster.
But I digress. The main point is that many of you are familiar with Trey Busch’s wine, because we have long carried his very popular “Renegade” second label; his “Renegade Red” has been an over-delivering favorite with most of you for several years now. Very Western in style, his wines are not at all Shy, and this is particularly true of the Underground Wine Project wines, which put their Fruit right in Your Face, where you are moved to Jump In and Wallow. So it is with that introduction we announce the new vintage of Underground Wine Project’s “Idle Hands,” from 100% Washington Syrah from Red Heaven Vineyard on Red Mountain, Washington State’s premier wine appellation. You’re gonna like it!
The Return of Dreamtime!
As both of our Regular Readers will note, last July, on a sudden Irrational Impulse, we Bought a Boat (Dreamtime) the day after we Sold a Boat (Layla). According to Popular Wisdom, the Two Best Days in a Boatowner’s life are The Day You Buy and The Day You Sell. The Big Takeaway here is that we were Giddy on Boat Buying and Selling—what could possibly Go Wrong?
Well, anyone who has lived long enough to have Spent Some Time with Murphy knows that Life is Cyclical. Or as Ecclesiastes might say, a Time for Everything In Its Season. And don’t forget Murphy’s Most Important Corollary– when things DO go Wrong, it will be at The Worst Possible Time, as it was when a Seriously Unusual Gale hit Lummi Island late last August which tore our Baby Boat from her mooring and cracked her open on the rocks near the ferry dock.
All these months later, after a LOT of Work, Dreamtime is back in the water and being Refitted for Service. And in Deference to Good Omens, we are happy to report that on her Maiden Voyage yesterday of at least several hundred yards from one slip to another at our dear Squalicum Marina, we were moved to Stop and Hail at our friend (and Wine Merchant Extraordinaire) Laurent’s boat about halfway across the Marina, only to find that we were crashing an ongoing Wine Tasting. I mean, Really, does it get any Better than This?!! And yes, next weekend you may expect to reap Dividends from this highly impromptu Tasting, which included a number of very tasty and well-priced white wines…!
This week’s wine tasting
Waitsburg “Three” White ’14 Washington $15
Grenache Blanc, Marsanne, and Picpoul from Boushey Vineyard: Bright, light yellow; aromas and flavors of orange zest, pink grapefruit, quince, and menthol, with a mineral and anise notes.
Gassier Esprit Rosé ’15 France $15
A very clear rosé with shades of peach; floral nose with white and yellow fruit notes (peach, apricot, pear); in the mouth, round and delicate with notes of white peach, mandarin and grapefruit.
Anciano 5-Yr Tempranillo Riserva ’08 Spain $11
Aromas of damp earth, mocha, tobacco, and black cherry. On the palate it is sweetly fruited, easy-going, and nicely balanced leading to a seamless, fruity finish.
Bocelli Sangiovese Italy $14
Bright,, lush, and appealing; deliciously ripe and smoky, with notes of marasca cherry, granite, and rhubarb compote. Finish is long and dry, with admirable acidity that makes the palate taut and pleasing
Idle Hands Syrah ’13 Washington $27
A classic Red Mountain Fruit Bomb with plenty of ripe cherries, blueberries, and hints of Chambord liqueur, spices, and lusciously smooth texture. Big and fruit-forward with the density and power that has become the hallmark of the Underground Wine Project.
lummi island wine tasting april 22 ’16
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Friday Breads (contact us to get on the pre-order list!)
Kamut Levain – Mostly made with Kamut, (aka Khorasan wheat), an ancient grain with a beautiful golden color and a slightly nutty taste. The sourdough culture is fed with fresh milled kamut and the final dough incorporates bread flour and more fresh milled kamut. Great toast! – $5/loaf
Barley & Rye w/ Pumpkin Seeds– Natural starter fed with wheat flour. The final dough includes bread and barley flour and freshly milled rye and whole wheat. A little buttermilk and honey is added to balance the earthiness of the whole grains and then loaded with toasted pumpkins. – $5/loaf.
And, ever popular….
Croissants!! Delicious buttery, flaky croissants, I’ve heard some say they didn’t have croissants this delicious in Paris! and no, that’s not Paris, Texas. (sorry, already sold out!!!) – 2/$5.
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Reuilly
Reuily sits on Kimmeridgian limestone, a geological chain running along the Loire Valley, highly valued for its Jurassic storehouse of marine and shell fossils dating back 150 million years. These minerals are without equal for producing some of the most beautiful white wines in France.
Reuilly comprises only about 500 acres of vineyards west of Bourges in the Loire Valley, where the primary grapes are sancerre and pinot noir. This quote from Kermit Lynch talks about the influence of these soils: “If you want to experience minerality, notice the first impression on the palate, which is of fresh, cushiony, Sancerre-like Sauvignon Blanc. Then, immediately, there is a stony firmness from within the wine. Les Fossiles is from a specific vineyard soil full of chalk, fossils and sea shells, making the fruit lively, with white flower perfumes, citrus and mineral finesse and precision.”
We are feeling the force of Spring in the air these days, which are hot in the afternoon despite the cool of the evening and the night. This is the perfect time to enjoy a really nice sauvignon blanc, and our first wine this weekend fits the bill perfectly.
La Baronne ‘Les Lanes’
The Lignères family’s ties to the wine world date back to the sixteenth century, but its modern incarnation began in 1957 when André and Suzette Lignères bought la Baronne Estate, along the border between the wine regions of Corbieres and Minervois, roughly following the main highway between Narbonne and Carcasonne in the western Languedoc.
Many of the wines have the grape Carignan in their blend, much of it from vines planted in 1890 that produce a marvelous, ruby red, meaty 100% Carignan wine that would make a believer out of the most Carignan-skeptic wine drinker. This week we are offering you a new blend from La Baronne, Les Lanes, a blend of 60% grenache and 40% carignan..
Read more about the estate on Tom Fiorina’s excellent blog article (we met Tom on the same trip and keep a link to his blog on our site- check it out!)
Boat Kit
This week my new boat kit arrived in a big plywood box. It is called a “Sherpa,” and was designed by John Welsford of New Zealand. Most of the complicated pieces are included, while the bottom and sides we must cut from additional sheets of high-end marine plywood.
Our new little sailboat “Dreamtime” got pretty badly bashed up in the freak windstorm that swept in late last August. We are happy to say she is nearly repaired and almost ready to go back into the water. When that happens, she will need a smart little tender to ferry people and their stuff back and forth from boat to shore. Never ones to get overly-optimistic, we hope to get this tender built somewhere between this July and July three years from now!
Dreamtime” came with a practical little inflatable dinghy from West Marine that will suffice until the new one is built. Stay tuned, mates!
This week’s wine tasting
Reuilly “Les Fossiles” Sauvignon Blanc ’13 France $18
Sage, black currant, gooseberry, and lime dominate both the nose and palate, where a suffusion of salt and chalk adds to a palpable sense of extract and invigoration…bring on the shellfish!
La Croix Belle Caringole Rosé ’14 France $11
Syrah-Grenache blend; intense nose of rose petals and pear-drop candies; palate of alpine strawberries, raspberries, and cranberries, with a citrus accent on the crisp finish.
Septima Malbec ’13 Argentina $9
Musky, ripe aromas of currants, leather, chocolate and espresso. Supple and generous flavors of sweet currant and tobacco flavors with a note of pepper, soft tannins and good length.
Liberty School Cabernet Sauvignon ’12 California $14
Exudes aromas of plum, black currants, blackberry, smoke, and earth. Soft tannins and bright acidity add balance and substance; concentrated flavors of raspberries and black cherries dominate the entry, with refined notes of earth and pepper and lingering hints of cherry on the long and satisfying finish.
La Baronne Costa Les Lanes ’12 France $14
Organically grown blend of Carignan, Mourvedre and Syrah from Corbieres; juicy and complex, with luscious, mouth-filling flavors of dark berries and exotic spice.
2072 Granger Way
