lummi island wine tasting dec 17 ’21
Current Covid Protocols
Tastings this weekend will be both Friday and Saturday from 4-6 pm, with attendance subject to our ongoing Covid requests:
— You must have completed a full Covid vaccination sequence to participate;
— We ask all guests to maintain mindful social distance from people outside your regular “neighborhood pods.”
Holiday Schedule
Please note we will be closed for both Christmas weekend (Dec 24-25), and New Year’s weekend (Dec 31-Jan 1).
However, we will be OPEN as usual for Friday Bread Pickup and wine tasting THIS WEEKEND, December 17-18.
Last tasting for Aught-21…!
Friday Bread This Week
Each Sunday bread offerings for the coming Friday are emailed to the mailing list by Island Bakery. Orders returned by the 5 pm Tuesday deadline are baked and available for pickup each Friday at the wine shop from 4:00 – 5:30 pm. To get on the bread order mailing list, click on the Contact Us link at the top of the page and fill out the form.
Over the years the bakery has established a rotating list of several dozen breads and pastries from which two different artisan breads and a pastry are selected each week.
This week’s deliveries:
Italian Breakfast Bread – A delicious sweet, but not too sweet, bread. Made with bread flour eggs, yogurt, a little sugar and vanilla as well as dried cranberries golden raisins and candied lemon peel. Perfect for breakfast as toast or even better for french toast – $5/loaf
Flax Seed Currant Ciabatta – Made with a poolish that ferments some of the flour and water overnight before being mixed with the final ingredients which includes a nice mix of bread flour and fresh milled whole wheat and rye flours. Loaded up with flax seeds and dried currants for a delicious bread. This bread is mixed with a lot of water that makes for a very slack dough so it can’t be weighed out and shaped like other bread, it is just cut into pieces. A really flavorful artisan loaf – $5/piece
and pastry this week…
Cranberry, Pecan, White Chocolate Muffins – Inspired by a bar available this time of year from a well known coffee shop, that might be called something like cranberry bliss or something. Delightful muffins chock full of everything in the name, fresh cranberries, toasted pecans and white chocolate chips. – 4/$5
Wine of the Week: Greywacke Pinot Noir ’16 New Zealand $32
Most simply, greywacke is a type of sandstone with a lot of rock grain and fragments in it, kind of a lumpy batter that set up before it was completely stirred. It is believed to have formed by mudslides along a continental shelf. Greywacke is made up of dull-colored sandy rocks that are mostly grey, brown, yellow, or black which can occur in thick or thin beds, and which bear some similarity to local formations of “Chuckanut sandstone” that we see on our own shores here on Lummi Island and around the San Juan Islands.
Last year we learned that many of the formations at the Aiston Preserve (recently acquired for restoration and preservation by the Lummi Island Heritage Trust) and much of the southern half of Lummi Island contain significant deposits of greywacke. These formations are about 150 million years old, and overlay basalt and chert from an even more ancient sea floor.
Greywacke is also a major part of the geological structure of New Zealand, and just a couple of years ago we learned there is a NZ winery of the same name. We have been stocking their sauvignon blanc and pinot noir for a couple of years now, and so far it has been universally satisfying. The rocky soil gives the wines a complex minerality with aromas and flavors of dark fruit and nuances of cedar, earth, and smoke.
Winemaker Kevin Judd was the longtime winemaker at the consistently highly regarded Cloudy Bay winery before starting his own winery at Greywacke in 2008. It’s good! (read more)
The Economics of the Heart: Looking for the Light
As 2021 comes to something of a whimpering close during this Holiday season, we depart from our usual laments to scratch the ground for any signs of Hope for the future.
COVID…
has kept us under siege for two very long years. We seniors in particular are grateful for the years of scientific research that paved the way for the rapid development and deployment of effective vaccines. Though the future might present more variants, we are all lucky ducks to have had this technology so readily available.
The good news is that while we are still threatened by the pandemic and the many vaccine deniers, we have much more freedom to move about safely than a year ago; many places are approaching “herd immunity” vaccination levels; and we have developed a robust technology to respond quickly to new variants.
The “BIG LIE...
that has been kept fueled and burning hot for over a year now by Republican leaders and their Fox co-conspirators broadcasting 24/7 that the 2020 election was stolen from the twice-impeached Donald Trump, is starting to collide with findings of the House Committee investigating those events. This week the Committee reported detailed evidence about the scope of the conspiracy to keep Trump in power, and indicated with some conviction (pun intended) that over the next few months they will provide an increasingly detailed roadmap of the attempted coup and the Trump loyalists who planned and orchestrated it.
The good news here is the strong likelihood that over the next few months the committee will be able to outline in even greater detail the timeline, participants, documents, conversations, meetings, and actions of the conspirators as they sought to overturn the results of the election.
Climate Change…
has delivered a Blockbuster Year of record-breaking numbers and intensity of forest fires, rain and flooding in some places, drought and heat waves in others; the sixth consecutive year of above-average hurricane numbers and intensities, and the seventh in a row with the first named storm occurring in May instead of June or July. And all of that has now been topped off in the last few days with the astonishingly destructive tornado disaster in the the Southeast, where even some Republicans might start believing that climate change is Real.
The small ray of light that could come from these dramatic increases in the destructive impacts of climate change is that their increasing number, magnitude, and economic costs might help make them impossible to ignore.
Sadly, all of these “hopeful signs” are predicated on the notion that when things get Bad Enough, ordinary people will start realizing the facts before their eyes over the repetitive slogans from their puppeteers. Still, during this holiday season we can all light a candle and dedicate its light to a brighter future for our planet, our human brothers and sisters, and all living things.
Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings;
Radiating kindness over the entire world
-from the Metta Sutta
This week’s $5 tasting: (since we wound up pouring distributor samples for our tasting last weekend, this weekend we will do the tasting menu we listed last week)
Charles Krug Napa Valley Chardonnay ’17 Napa $18
The cool, foggy North Bay/Carneros region delivers a nice balance of acidity and ripeness, rounded out nicely by barrel fermentation and sur lie aging, producing aromas of tropical fruit and citrus blossom with flavors of peach and pear, and a velvety texture.
Capcanes Mas Donis Old Vines ‘18 Spain $14
Velvety mouthfeel and texture; wild red and black berry flavors, with cherry, spices and herbs; medium to full-bodied with soft and velvet tannins and nicely refreshing finish.
Greywacke Pinot Noir ’16 New Zealand $32
Delicious aromas of juicy blackberries, blueberries and strawberry jam, with suggestions of black olives, cedar and a hint of lavender. Finely structured palate shows red and black fruit with earthy, smoky nuances.
lummi island wine tasting dec 10 ’21
Current Covid Protocols
Tastings this weekend will be both Friday and Saturday from 4-6 pm, with attendance subject to our ongoing Covid requests:
— You must have completed a full Covid vaccination sequence to participate;
— We ask all guests to maintain mindful social distance from people outside your regular “neighborhood pods.”
Holiday Schedule
Please note we will be closed for both Christmas weekend (Dec 24-25), and New Year’s weekend (Dec 31-Jan 1).
However, we will be OPEN as usual for Friday Bread Pickup and Fri-Sat wine tasting THIS WEEKEND, December 10-11, and NEXT WEEKEND, December 17-18.
Friday Bread This Week
Each Sunday bread offerings for the coming Friday are emailed to the mailing list by Island Bakery. Orders returned by the 5 pm Tuesday deadline are baked and available for pickup each Friday at the wine shop from 4:00 – 5:30 pm. To get on the bread order mailing list, click on the Contact Us link at the top of the page and fill out the form.
Over the years the bakery has established a rotating list of several dozen breads and pastries from which two different artisan breads and a pastry are selected each week.
This week’s deliveries:
Poolish Ale Bread – The preferment here is a poolish, made with bread flour, a bit of yeast and a nice ale for the liquid and fermented overnight. Mixed the next day with bread flour and fresh milled whole wheat. This makes a great all around bread with a nice crisp crust – $5/loaf
Buckwheat Walnut & Honey – A flavorful artisan bread also made with a poolish, fresh milled buckwheat and bread flour. Buckwheat is actually a seed (not a grain) and closer in the plant family to rhubarb and sorrel than to wheat and contains no gluten (note that this bread does include some wheat flour). Buckwheat has an earthy flavor that in this bread is balanced with a little honey. Some toasted walnuts add a nice crunch. This bread goes well with meats and cheeses – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Rum Raisin Brioche: A delicious brioche dough full of eggs, butter and sugar. Filled with golden raisins and chunks of almond paste and (wait there’s more!) topped with a chocolate glaze before baking.- 2/$5
Wine of the Week: Greywacke Pinot Noir ’16 New Zealand $32
Most simply, greywacke is a type of sandstone with a lot of rock grain and fragments in it, kind of a lumpy batter that set up before it was completely stirred. It is believed to have formed by mudslides along a continental shelf. Greywacke is made up of dull-colored sandy rocks that are mostly grey, brown, yellow, or black which can occur in thick or thin beds, and which bear some similarity to local formations of “Chuckanut sandstone” that we see on our own shores here on Lummi Island and around the San Juan Islands.
Last year we learned that many of the formations at the Aiston Preserve (recently acquired for restoration and preservation by the Lummi Island Heritage Trust) and much of the southern half of Lummi Island contain significant deposits of greywacke. These formations are about 150 million years old, and overlay basalt and chert from an even more ancient sea floor.
Greywacke is also a major part of the geological structure of New Zealand, and just a couple of years ago we learned there is a NZ winery of the same name. We have been stocking their sauvignon blanc and pinot noir for a couple of years now, and so far it has been universally satisfying. The rocky soil gives the wines a complex minerality with aromas and flavors of dark fruit and nuances of cedar, earth, and smoke.
Winemaker Kevin Judd was the longtime winemaker at the consistently highly regarded Cloudy Bay winery before starting his own winery at Greywacke in 2008. It’s good! (read more)
The Economics of the Heart: Media, Politics, and Mindfulness
In the Fall of 2017, 60 Minutes ran a special edition hosted by Oprah Winfrey, in which 14 Michigan voters came together to meet and talk about their approval/disapproval of the Trump administration. Half were pro-Trump, and half were anti-Trump. The ensuing discussion revealed deeply embedded beliefs and a general unwillingness for those on either side to budge even an inch from their entrenched positions.
Six months later, Oprah repeated the event with the same people. Surprisingly, the groups had met on their own in several venues between the meetings. Somehow, although they did not change their minds about pro/anti-Trumpiness, they developed a certain rapport and acceptance. But while transcripts of the discussion show the development of enough respect to listen to opposing views, finding common ground remained more elusive.
In June of 2018, Amanda Ripley, a journalist and fellow at the Emerson Collective, wrote a fascinating piece about the need for a different kind of journalism in today’s highly polarized environment. Her analysis explores in a compelling way how journalists can broaden conversations in ways that build inclusion and avoid polarization. She makes a strong case that an important key is that “while humans share a tendency to simplify and demonize, we also share a desire for understanding.”
Therefore, she argues, the direction of more effective communication is to explore issues and people’s feelings about them more deeply, and she identifies five guidelines journalists could use with people when writing stories. As I read them, my decades of training and practice in Hakomi, Feldenkrais, Tai chi, and Zen started lighting up all kinds of connections: the element that all five have in common is quite simple: invite people to explore their viewpoints mindfully!
The easiest way to think about this is to imagine ordinary consciousness as the surface of an ocean. It’s a very busy place, with a Lot of Noise from wind, waves, and currents. The simplest way to gain insight into deeper layers of our own consciousness is to close our eyes and shift our focus away from thinking mind and focus on our physical and emotional experiences in the present moment.
At the conscious level we can espouse particular beliefs with great fervor. At the unconscious level there is a long personal story about how each belief came into being– usually in childhood as a defense against being hurt…again. Like when a rabbit knows you see it and it freezes, following its deep-wired internal imperative: Don’t Look Like Something to Eat!”
The Big Takeaway here is that our Media Universe has become Seriously Toxic. Like 2001’s Supercomputer Hal 9000, our media and internet feedback mechanisms are Stuck and must be unplugged and reprogrammed. Amanda Ripley’s article is recommended to read and share widely if we (including journalists!) are to wake up from the collective trance which is threatening everything we all hold most dear.
“Stop, Dave…my Mind is going… my Mind is going… I can feel it… I can feel it…”
This week’s $5 tasting:
Capcanes Mas Donis Old Vines ‘18 Spain $14
Velvety mouthfeel and texture; wild red and black berry flavors, with cherry, spices and herbs; medium to full-bodied with soft and velvet tannins and nicely refreshing finish.
Charles Krug Napa Valley Chardonnay ’17 Napa $18
The cool, foggy North Bay/Carneros region delivers a nice balance of acidity and ripeness, evoked nicely by barrel fermentation and sur lie aging, producing aromas of tropical fruit and citrus blossom with flavors of peach and pear.
Greywacke Pinot Noir ’16 New Zealand $32
Delicious aromas of juicy blackberries, blueberries and strawberry jam, with suggestions of black olives, cedar and a hint of lavender. Finely structured palate shows red and black fruit with earthy, smoky nuances.
lummi island wine tasting dec 3 ’21
Current Covid Protocols
Tastings this weekend will be both Friday and Saturday from 4-6 pm, with attendance subject to our ongoing Covid requests:
— You must have completed a full Covid vaccination sequence to participate;
— We ask all guests to maintain mindful social distance from people outside your regular “neighborhood pods.”
Holiday Schedule
Each Holiday Season brings lots of travel plans, challenging weather, and a certain bustle of distractions. After some consideration of our own family travel commitments, we will be closed Christmas weekend (Dec 24-25), and New Year’s weekend (Dec 31-Jan 1).
However, we will be OPEN as usual for Friday Bread Pickup and Fri-Sat wine tasting December 3-4, 10-11, and 17-18. And for the moment, our January schedule remains uncertain; please stay tuned!
Friday Bread This Week
Each Sunday bread offerings for the coming Friday are emailed to the mailing list by Island Bakery. Orders returned by the 5 pm Tuesday deadline are baked and available for pickup each Friday at the wine shop from 4:00 – 5:30 pm. To get on the bread order mailing list, click on the Contact Us link at the top of the page and fill out the form.
Over the years the bakery has established a rotating list of several dozen breads and pastries from which two different artisan breads and a pastry are selected each week.
This week’s deliveries:
Pain au Levain – Made with a nice mix of bread flour and freshly milled whole wheat and rye flours. After building the sourdough over several days the final dough is mixed and then gets a long cool overnight ferment in the refrigerator. This really allows the flavor to develop in this bread. A great all around bread – $5/loaf
Raisin Spice – Made with a poolish fermented overnight before the final dough is mixed next day using bread flour, freshly milled whole wheat, and rolled oats, then some honey for sweetness, a little milk for a tender crumb and raisins and a healthy dose of speculoos (speculaas), a holiday spice mix popular in The Netherlands and Belgium using cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, white pepper, anise, ginger, and cardamom mixed into the dough for a hearty, rustic loaf. – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Gibassiers – A traditional french pastry from the south of France. Made with a delicious sweet dough full of milk, butter, eggs and olive oil. The addition of orange flower water, candied orange peel and anise seed bring great flavor to these pastries. After baking they are brushed with melted butter and sprinkled with more sugar. Ooh La La! – 2/$5
Wines of the Week: Wine Suggestions for After Your Holiday Dinner
This weekend’s tasting will be hosted by our friend and sommelier Steven Brown, who also poured our tasting a couple of weeks ago. This time he has brought several after-dinner fortified wines including a sherry, a madeira, and a port.
Principe de Barbadillo Amontillado
First aged as a Manzanilla under a velum of natural flor yeast for 8 years and a further 7 years of oxidative aging. Shows extraordinary nose of almonds and walnuts and a brandy-like edge with and tangy salinity. On the palate, displays coastal/saline elements with hints of almonds, walnuts, and zesty lemon peel.
Justino’s Fanal Madeira Rainwater
Madeira Rainwater is a Medium dry blend of Verdelho and Tinta Negra aged for five years, and which makes an excellent summer pairing with salads and spicy foods.
Justino’s Fanal Madeira Full Rich Royal Oporto 10 Year Tawny Oporto (in decanter)
Quite dark in color, with rich fresh fruit flavors; perfumed and delicate, it shows light sweetness, a good layer of fruit and wood acidity, leaving a dry aftertaste.
The Economics of the Heart: The War On Reproductive Rights
“‘Mit Kind II’ (‘With Child II’)” by wwwuppertal is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
Over the past forty years we have seen Republicans invest wholeheartedly in making racism, abortion, gun rights, and immigration their ongoing political Straw Men. Any time of day, wherever you are in the country, you can turn on Fox News or rural talk radio, or click on uncountable conspiracy theory websites that continually churn out repetitive streams of Nonsense that their followers are, let’s face it, too stupid or brainwashed to question.
As a political strategy, it was very effective at giving Republicans control of the South and much of rural America for some forty years, and they have used that power to transfer wealth and income from the pockets of millions of rural voters in their own base to a handful of billionaire campaign contributors that have kept them in power all these years. Beginning in the Gingrich 90’s, Republican cynicism and hypocrisy doubled down on its commitment to loot the Federal Government for themselves and their cronies while making the middle class poor and the poor destitute.
Donald Trump, showman and scammer extraordinaire, was their Dream Candidate. With the sheer force of his malignant personality and complete lack of ethics, he was able to take complete control of the Party by turning his base against anyone who questioned his authority, and most Republicans have either quit politics or dutifully prostrated themselves before him as required. (You know, like Lindsay Graham and the entire parade of party leaders now being subpoenaed by the House January 6 Committee.) Trump gave party leaders many things they craved, including Mitch McConnell’s longstanding Wet Dream of having impenetrable Conservative control of the Supreme Court.
Which brings us to the harsh reality that our Supreme Court is leaning like the Tower of Pisa toward giving states the right to regulate women’s access to safe and legal abortion as part of their family planning responsibilities. Just this week we heard the kinds of questions the Justices asked the presenting lawyers as they prepare to decide whether the new abortion regulation law in Mississippi is Constitutional. There is wide speculation that a majority of Justices will allow the law to stand, opening the door for each State to set its own rules governing a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body in that State. And, cementing Republican dominance in Blatant Hypocrisy, these are the same people that adamantly oppose any government mandate to get a vaccination during a pandemic because, you know, a man has a Constitutional right to control his own body, but apparently a woman might not for much longer.
Many of the questions posed to the lawyers by the Justices revealed a very shallow intellectual concept of all that is at stake for a woman and her family in deciding whether or not to terminate a pregnancy. In particular, the line of questioning taken by Justice Barrett seemed particularly detached from the range of challenges facing an individual woman with a particular pregnancy at a particular time in her life, with whatever set of complicating circumstances might constrain her ability to take on a twenty-year parenting commitment. Nor, in the case of Justice Barrett’s flippant question, does it seem reasonable that a woman should be required to carry every pregnancy to term or miscarriage and then abandon it at the hospital for adoption and just walk out if she isn’t interested in motherhood. Really? Yes, she actually said that.
Years ago, when I was training to be a psychotherapist, a conversation about abortion evolved in a workshop of twenty or so people. It was triggered by a process we were all watching between one of the female students (40-ish) and one of the instructors. The session was very intense, exploring lingering issues the woman was still dealing with from a long ago abortion, and evoked a lot of emotion for all present. In subsequent discussion, it turned out that several other women in the group had also had gone through similar experiences, and shared their stories. There were lots of tears and anguish, compassion, and embracing. Most of them had had other children before or after the abortion experience.
My deeply felt conviction during and since that experience is that no woman is blasé about getting an abortion. Whatever the reasons, the decision is made with deep reservations and inner conflicts, inconvenient or unfair constraints of personal health, marital situation, financial considerations, or the needs of other children in the family. It is a heart-wrenching, gut-wrenching dilemma with no simple answer, and the source of a lifetime of second-guessing.
At root, getting pregnant is easy, and raising children is a long, difficult commitment. Human beings are destroying entire species by the millions as we reproduce more and more of our kind and poison the planet with our chemicals, our plastics, and our short-sighted so-called “intelligence.” Are Republicans saying that what the world really needs are a few billion more human beings? That God’s Plan is to bury us in our own waste?
Each human birth imposes decades of resource consumption on our Planet. Economists (including this one) have long advocated rationing births by lotteries, licenses, birth taxes, or birth control subsidies, with the utopian goal of “a sustainable future for fewer humans.”
Scary times.
This week’s $5 tasting:
see above!
lummi island wine tasting nov 26 ’21
Winter Schedule Notes
We are away and the shop has been closed for Thanksgiving, so this post is just to update you on our December schedule. And, after the snafu we had last week with our email list, this is a small test to see if it is working any better this week. Fingers crossed!
Each Holiday Season brings schedule, travel, and weather challenges, and a demanding bustle of distractions.
After some consideration of our own family travel commitments, we will be Closed Christmas weekend (Dec 24-25), and New Year’s weekend (Dec 31-Jan 1).
However, we will be OPEN as usual for Friday Bread Pickup and Fri-Sat wine tastings the first three weekends of December.
from Steven’s wine tasting with us on 11/12
Please note that NEXT weekend ( Dec 3-4) Steven Brown will return to feature a special tasting of holiday cordials including (we think) sherry, port, madeira, and perhaps some other surprises. These wines are always comforting this time of year, and a special treat around holiday gatherings.
And for the moment, our January schedule remains uncertain; please stay tuned!
2072 Granger Way