lummi island wine tasting july 16 ’21
Current Hours: Friday & Saturday 4-6pm
We are still operating under reduced hours 4-6pm Friday and Saturday for wine tasting and sales. Covid vaccinations are required for admission upstairs in the tasting room, but unvaccinated guests are welcome to enjoy wine tasting outside on our entry deck.
The weather looks clear through the weekend, with sunshine and moderate summer temperatures predicted.
Bread This Week
Levain w/ Dried Cherries and Pecans – A levain is started the night before final mixing of the dough using a sourdough starter to trigger the fermentation process and start developing the gluten. The final dough is made with the levain, bread flour and fresh milled whole wheat, then loaded with dried cherries and toasted pecans. A nice rustic loaf that goes well with meats and cheese.– $5/loaf
Pan de Cioccolate – A delicious chocolate artisan bread without lots of eggs, butter and sugar. Rather this is a rich chocolate bread made with a levain, bread flour, fresh milled rye flour, honey, vanilla and plenty of dark chocolate. Makes fabulous French toast! – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Individual Cinnamon Rolls – Made with a rich sweet roll dough of eggs, butter and sugar. The dough is rolled out, spread with pastry cream and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, then rolled up and sliced into individual rolls for baking and topped off with a cream cheese glaze. – 2/$5.
Wine of the Week: Willamette Valley Vineyards Whole Cluster Pinot Noir ’20 Oregon $20
Notes: Made from hand-picked whole clusters fermented in chilled stainless vats; nose opens with aromas of blackberry, cherry, and raspberry accented by subtle spice and vanilla. Palate is rich and crisp, leading to juicy flavors that mirror aromas plus hints of dark chocolate and mocha that flow into a soft, round, balanced finish.
Willamette Valley Vineyards was founded in 1983 by Jim Bernau near Salem, Oregon. It has acquired numerous area vineyards over the years through mergers with other growers. Each vineyard harvest is separately fermented, with the best going to single vineyard bottlings to showcase the best fruit characteristics of each site, with attention to depth, richness of mouthfeel and balance.
The basic story is that Jim’s father, a lawyer in Roseburg, Oregon in the sixties, was approached by recent UC Davis Graduate Richard Sommer about navigating around the outdated Oregon laws against winemaking left over from Prohibition. Jim, btw, made his first wine at age ten from frozen grape juice, and just stayed with it.
Here’s a short video on the winery’s history.
Those of you who frequent our shop will recall that in the last couple of years we have carried several wines under the label of “Oregon Solidarity.” In late September of 2018 a California winery owned by wine mogul Joe Wagner abruptly cancelled its long-standing $4 million order for Oregon fruit. Left in a deep lurch, growers turned to Oregon wineries King Estate and WVV for help.
Together with two smaller wineries (Silvan Ridge and Eyrie), they bought the entire harvest of pinot noir and chardonnay and turned them into three wines under the “Oregon Solidarity” label: a rosé, a chardonnay, and a pinot noir. We have carried them all, and many of you have bought and enjoyed them. So our hats have been off to all of the wineries that participated in this hastily organized community project!
Today’s whole cluster pinot noir is a blend of fruit from several WVV vineyards which was not selected for any of the single-vineyard wines.
The Economics of the Heart: In Praise of Biden-omics
In a recent speech, President Biden gave just about the best definition of economics we have seen in a very long time:
‘Now, look, I’m a proud Capitalist. I spent most of my career representing the Corporate State of Delaware. I know America can’t succeed unless American business succeeds…But let me be very clear: Capitalism without competition isn’t Capitalism; it’s Exploitation. Without healthy competition, big players can charge whatever they want and treat you however they want. And for too many Americans, that means accepting a bad deal for things you can’t go without.’
There is a great deal of public confusion about Economics. Much of that confusion has been sown, fertilized, and plowed into the American psyche by many decades of misleading political manipulation. At its simplest level, as we have mentioned before, the “economy” is a parlor game where everyone who buys or sells anything has a seat at the table. When any exchange takes place, goods and services are exchanged for credit (let’s call it “money”). The “economic” assumption here is that rational people will only make exchanges that make them feel better off. And to the extent that all economic actors are rational, economic theory tells us that all willing parties to a trade will feel better off after the trade than before.
This is the logic behind the myth that free markets make everyone better off. The fact is that in the Real World there are consistent economic winners and losers. Why? Because every real-world exchange deviates in some way from the long list of very restrictive assumptions that must hold true for an exchange market to be “perfectly competitive.” These include missing conditions like perfect information, large numbers of buyers and sellers for any product or service, no spillover effects (like pollution, noise, or nuisance), any many, many more. The best examples of Real competitive markets are public markets with many vendors for any particular product or service.
So when Mr. BIden says “Capitalism without competition isn’t Capitalism; it’s Exploitation, he is completely aligned with the writing of classical economist Adam Smith, who wrote, in The Wealth of Nations in 1776 : “No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, cloath and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, cloathed and lodged.”
Even iconic Conservative economist Milton Friedman, who spent a lifetime extolling the virtues of competition and the dangers of regulation, also recognized the failure of markets to assure either livable incomes or equitable outcomes. He was a long-time advocate of a negative income tax as a means of adding an element of fairness to an economic system fraught with unequal starting positions, unequal opportunities, and unequal and unacceptable economic outcomes.
Republicans have been paying lip service to the sanctity of “the Free Market” since Reagan used it as a justification for throwing the poorest, neediest, and sickest of us Under the Bus in the name of Freedom. As we now see clearly every day, the Republican Wet Dream Economy elevates the wealthiest, diminishes the poorest, and punishes the weakest, all while destroying our fragile Planet with their Astonishing Environmental Ignorance and breathtaking Hubris.
This week’s $5 tasting:
La Vielle Ferme Rosé ’20 France $10
Classic and tasty blend of grenache, syrah, and cinsault from northern Provence; fruity, dry, crisp, delicious, and smooth, and at a bargain price!
2020 Charles Krug Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc Napa $15
Cold-soaked before pressing and cold-fermented on the skins to develop rich and nuanced aromas and flavors of grassy lime, tropical fruits, and lychee, with a crisp, lingering finish.
Willamette Valley Vineyards Whole Cluster Pinot Noir ’20 Oregon $20
Hand-picked whole clusters are fermented in chilled stainless vats; opens with aromas of blackberry, cherry, and raspberry accented by subtle spice and vanilla. Palate is rich and mouth-coating, leading to juicy flavors that mirror aromas with the addition of dark chocolate and mocha that flow into a soft, round, balanced finish.
lummi island wine tasting july 9-10 ’21
Current Hours: Friday & Saturday 4-6pm
We are still operating under reduced hours 4-6pm Friday and Saturday for wine tasting and sales. Covid vaccinations are required for admission upstairs in the tasting room, but unvaccinated guests are welcome to enjoy wine tasting outside on our entry deck.
The weather looks clear through the weekend, with sunshine and moderate summer temperatures predicted.
Bread This Week
Kamut Levain – Kamut, aka khorasan wheat, is an ancient, protein-rich grain discovered in a cave in Iran in the 70’s that many people who can’t tolerate wheat find more digestible. This bread is made with a levain that is fermented overnight before being mixed with with bread flour and fresh milled whole kamut flour. It has a nutty, rich flavor and makes a golden color loaf. A great all around bread – $5/loaf
Barley, Whole Wheat, & Rye Levain – a really nice mule-grain artisan bread made with a sourdough culture built over several days. Made with bread flour and freshly milled whole wheat, barley and rye flours. A hearty whole grain bread that is a great all around bread – $5/loaf
and pastry this week, another favorite…
Morning Buns – Made popular by Tartine Bakery in San Francisco with the same laminated dough as croissants. The dough is rolled out, spread with a filling of brown sugar, orange zest, butter and cinnamon, then rolled up and sliced before baking. – 2/$5
Wine of the Week: Casal Garcia Vinho Verde
As our dear, Portuguese-fluent friend Myra taught us years ago, the correct way to pronounce “vinho verde” (literally ‘green wine’ –for its youth, not its color– is something like “veen-yo vairdge.” We should also note that when she says it, she moves her head and hands in space, painting the words in the air like a Samba. So you know this has to be, you know, Something Special. Which is true, especially in mid-summer.
This little region at the northern end of Portugal has been making this wine for some 2000 years in what was once called the Minho province. It’s in the blood, it’s in the landscape, it’s in the long cultural history of the region. There are some 19,000 individual “vineyards” spread over 51,000 acres. A quick calculation reveals that on average, that’s about 2.6 acres per vineyard. But many of those are even much smaller family vineyards grown on stone walls, fences, and pergolas on whatever land is available.
Located on the Atlantic west coast of the Iberian Peninsula in northern Portugal, the Vinho Verde region resembles the Pacific NW with its lush, green landscape and temperate climate. Grape varietals permitted in vinho verde include Alvarinho, Avesso, Azal, Arinto, Loureiro, and Trajadura, which all grow well in the area.
Usually bottled within three to six months after harvest, “green wine” pairs beautifully with summer salads, seafood and Asian cuisine, and is meant to be enjoyed young. Often it shows a light frizzante on the palate and a hint of off-dry sweetness balanced nicely by palate-cleansing acidity and a soothing freshness.
A light wine that is marked by its beautiful citric colors and incredible freshness with with soft aromas of tropical fruits and citrus. A very balanced wine that leaves a harmonious and citric after-taste.
The Economics of the Heart: Media and Anger Management
We were fascinated some years ago by the behavioral differences between Chimpanzees and Bonobos described in Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence. A major takeaway from the book is that the organization of male-dominated Chimp society continually stimulates ongoing male violence– against females, against other males in their own group, and even more violently against males in other groups.
This violence has been further correlated with the olfactory obviousness of female estrus in chimp females; research has suggested that “no adult male chimpanzee is subordinate to any female of any rank,” and that chimp males have “an innate propensity for dominance, gratuitous violence, war, rape, and murder.”
In contrast, in bonobo society, estrus has more subtle outward signs, and therefore does not evoke male competition, and indeed may explain why bonobo society is essentially matriarchal. The implication is that a single variable (the scent of female estrus) has had a profound effect on the evolution of these two closely related primates.
Over the last few years, we have observed the emergence of a similar contrast between Republicans and Democrats. At first glance, they seem members of the same species, citizens of the same Country. But the inescapable truth of our recent experiences is that Republicans are like chimps in some kind of Estrus Rage. They have become irrational to the point of delusion. Their media outlets purposely broadcast in RAISED and ANGRY voices, deliberately evoking Outrage and Anger with Lies Big and Small.
The polarities between chimps and bonobos are artifacts of their genetic differences. The polarities between Republicans and Democrats are manufactured continually and deliberately to keep a base of voters misinformed and malleable pawns in a power game aimed at taking over this country and dismantling it piece by piece–the ultimate corporate Takeover and Liquidation of Assets.
Hard to digest under any circumstances, but probably your best bet is serving at room temperature for the Last Show at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe…
This week’s $5 tasting:
Adorada “eau de California” Rosé ’16 California $14
Brilliant coral color with aromas of strawberries, red grapefruit, rose petal, and jasmine; palate of strawberry, orange zest and a touch of white pepper spice with bright acidity to balance the fruity creaminess. And all presented in a Very Fashionable Package!
Casal Garcia Vinho Verde Portugal $10
A light wine that is marked by its beautiful citric colors and incredible freshness with with soft aromas of tropical fruits and citrus. A very balanced wine that finishes with a refreshing, crisp, and harmonious finish.
Daou Pessimist Red blend ’17 California (Paso Robles) $25
Full-bodied, rich and spicy, with good balance and unfolding layers of elderberry and truffle with accents of cocoa, cardamom eucalyptus, leather, tobacco, and grilled meat, with an alluring, smooth and leisurely finish.
lummi island wine tasting july 2 ’21
Current Hours: Friday & Saturday from 4-6pm
We are currently still operating under reduced hours as an extra precaution against Covid. All are welcome, and while vaccinations are required for admission upstairs in the tasting room, unvaccinated guests are welcome to enjoy wine tasting outside on our entry deck.
The weather looks clear for the weekend, with moderate summer temperatures predicted. It is also very dry, so we hope all of you will be very restrained with any fireworks.
Bread This Week
Breton – Incorporates the flavors and style of Brittany; bead flour, buckwheat, and rye make for interesting flavors, and sel gris -the grey salt from the region- adds a nice mineral edge. – $5/loaf
Whole Wheat Levain – Made with a sourdough starter built up over several days before final mixing of the dough, which is then fermented overnight. This long slow process nurtures the fermentation process and gluten development, giving it a ‘toothy’ crumb, great texture and flavor, and a nice crisp crust. – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Brioche Tart au Sucre – aka brioche sugar tarts. A rich brioche dough full of eggs and butter is rolled into a round tart and topped with more eggs, cream, butter and sugar; a great substitute for shortcake with the fresh berries oin season right now. – 2/$5
Region of the Week: Pic St. Loup
This week we are featuring two wines from the same appellation in France. The “Pic” in the small French wine region of Pic St. Loup is a long, craggy ridge some 2,000 feet high that dominates the French landscape for many miles in every direction. It looms over a collection of very special, well-drained, limestone-rich vineyards. About an hour north of Montpellier on the Mediterranean coast to the south, it features hot days, but is also far enough north to have Atlantic-influenced cool nights that induce slow, full ripening.
We maintain a certain fascination with this unique little wine region a short drive north from Montpellier on the Mediterranean coast. Visible in the film, the “Pic” is a 640-meter “Tooth” of granite that dominates the view for miles in every direction– powerful, beautiful, vaguely remote, and iconic.
The wines from Pic St. Loup must be predominantly syrah, grenache, and mourvedre (as in nearby Southern Rhone) and fairly consistently have a certain gravitas. The vines must be at least six years old (not the usual three) before considered mature enough for making red wines, but are perfect for making excellent rosé!. Vineyards are scattered among rugged terrain that slopes up from the Mediterranean. Atlantic influences make the local climate cooler and wetter than elsewhere in Languedoc. Wines from this little region typically show an earthy complexity accented by spicy, herbal aromas and flavors of the wild aromatic herbs that flourish in the area, commonly known as “garrigue.”
Typically, Pic St. Loup reds show deep color and satisfying depth of flavor, with bold, spicy, and earthy complexity. They also tend to display more elegance and refinement than wines from the hotter Languedoc plains to the south. This week we are pouring two wines from the region, both old favorites: the Lancyre Rosé and the Chateau la Roque Rouge, both blends of Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvèdre.
Economics of the Heart: The Futility of False Economies
A couple of days ago Lummi Island writer Charlie Warzel had a brief piece in the Washington Post about our recent heat wave. The title nicely captured what we all experienced: existential dread.
Climate science has been warning us about the coming Climate Crunch for nearly fifty years. In 1980 I spent a summer as a research fellow at Battelle Labs working on a project funded by the Department of Energy on the potential economic impacts of carbon dioxide-induced climate change. A number of complex simulation models were already available, and were predicting a potential increase in average temperature of 1.5 degrees by year 2000. Such models view climate as a heat engine, which is any system that uses heat energy to do work, and view CO2 concentration as a variable that decreases the ability of the atmosphere to cool.
In the case of climate systems, the Sun is the power source and the atmosphere, land masses, oceans, and waterways are sinks. As the Earth turns on its axis, at every moment a different point on its surface sees the Sun directly overhead. That moving geographic point traces the line of maximum solar radiation that day. Each year the line crosses the Equator twice and briefly touches the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn once each.
At any given point on the planet the solar energy waxes and wanes through the day. Hot air rises, moves toward the poles, cools, and sinks, powering atmospheric circulation and winds. Similarly cold water sinks and warmer water rises. Where wind and water meet, the friction causes waves. Where cold and warm water meet, they cause vertical circulation. Where sun, water, and air meet, heat causes evaporation and cold causes condensation and rain. As the atmosphere warms it evaporates more water, dumps more rain, and releases more kinetic energy as wind. We all know these things.
A useful metaphor for our existential dread is not these natural cycles, but the recent tragedy of the condo collapse in Florida. It is becoming clear that the Owners’ Association had been informed several years earlier that the building had severe and rapidly worsening structural damage, and it was going to cost each owner a LOT of $$ to fix it. After two years of being unable to get residents to agree to fund the work, many of the volunteer Board members resigned as a group.
Those condos are a metaphor for our Climate, and this past weekend, right here where we live, we saw the cracks open up. We can feel in our bones that if we don’t all put our shoulders to this wheel and make the sacrifices and efforts required to stop and reverse global warming in the next couple of decades– i.e. Right Now– we could miss our only chance and our Earth could become the next Venus– a lifeless furnace of a planet. And that totally qualifies as existential dread.
This week’s $5 tasting:
Lancyre Pic St. Loup Rosé ’20 France $15
Raspberry and pear aromas on the nose, with distinctive spicy, minty garrigue notes. Big, bold and firm on the palate, ending with a long, clean finish; pairs perfectly with hearty salads, grilled vegetables, kebabs, stuffed tomatoes or charcuterie.
Oregon Solidarity Chardonnay ’18 Oregon $18
Bursts with fresh apple, pear and peach aromas. Barrel fermentation has smoothed any rough edges and polished the flavors to a bright sheen.
Chateau la Roque Rouge ’17 France $19
65% Grenache, 25% Syrah, 10% Mourvèdre. A lithe and expressive red, with fine balance and well-structured flavors of dried cherry, plum, and boysenberry, featuring hints of tarragon and cream on the finish.
lummi island wine tasting june 25-26 ’21
Re-Open Hours: Fridays & Saturdays 4-6pm
NOTE: Covid vaccinations are required for admission upstairs, but unvaccinated guests are welcome to enjoy tastings on the deck.
Bread This Week
Spelt Levain – Spelt is an ancient grain that is a wheat. It has a nutty, slightly sweet flavor and has gluten but it isn’t as strong as the gluten in modern wheat. This bread is made with a culture that is used to create a levain before the final dough is mixed with traditional bread flour, spelt flour, fresh milled whole spelt and fresh milled whole rye. It is a great all around bread – $5/loaf
Semolina w/ Fennel & Raisins – Also a levain bread made with bread flour, semolina and some fresh milled whole wheat. A little butter for a tender crumb and fennel seeds and golden raisins round out the flavors. Judy A. says this is her favorite! These flavors go really well with meats and cheese, but it also makes pretty darn good toast – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Chocolate Babka Rolls – A sweet pastry dough full of eggs, butter and sugar, rolled and spread with a chocolate filling, rolled up and cut into individual rolls that are placed in baking forms for baking and then brushed with sugar syrup after baking. I’ve heard some people say they hide these to keep them all to theirselves. Be sure and get your order in early as quantities are limited – 2/$5
Wine of the Week: Chasing Venus Sauvignon Blanc ’20 New Zealand $14
This is an interesting wine our island wine rep Judy brought by a few weeks ago. We both liked it immediately. Though unmistakably a NZ sauv blanc, it also has more subtlety, complexity,and flavor nuances than is typical for the region. With unusually hot weather forecast for this weekend, this wine is certain to be a refreshing thirst-quencher.
The interesting name of this NZ sauv blanc derives from the voyage of Captain James Cook in command of the HMS Endeavor from 1768-1771 on an expedition with two major objectives. The first was a Royal Society scientific project to study the predicted transit of Venus across the Sun in 1769. The second was more a geopolitical matter of of growing Empire: to search for and explore Terra Australis Incognita, the rumored “undiscovered land” in the South Pacific. And indeed, Cook became the first European to locate and explore New Zealand and Australia, with huge and lasting consequences.
Tasting notes: Bright, crisp, lively and refreshing, with tantalizing aromas of tropical fruit, lychee, and pineapple lead to big flavors of grapefruit, mango, papaya, gooseberry and lime.
Economics of the Heart: The Edges of the Future
Believe it or not, we are about to mark the middle of the first year of the Biden Presidency. The past year has been a chaotic sequence of unlikely events that continue to shroud even the relatively short-term future in discomforting uncertainty. In the space of a year our country has endured an astonishing sequence of emotional roller coaster rides.
A brief list of emotionally charged events of the past year include things like two Impeachment Convictions of the Former Guy, the Global Covid Pandemic, the death of liberal Justice Ginsburg and immediate hypocritical assignment of her seat by Darth McConnell to yet another Catholic Absolutist; the Big Lie about the 2020 election; the unlikely wins of two Democrats as Senators in Georgia; Republican collusion in the Capitol Riot; Republican assertion that Climate Change is not a problem — the list goes on and on.
We find ourselves at a tense crossroads where anything can happen; where the stakes are infinitely high, and the continuing existence of Life on Earth is in peril from human activity. Life itself feels delicately and inappropriately at stake, mainly because Republicans are more concerned about preserving personal and corporate wealth than about the long-term viability of Life on Earth. Maybe they are All In with the belief that short-term profit is more important than long-term survival and viability. Maybe it’s not just an act.
The point we are trying to locate and take aim at is this: the very existence of Life on Earth is in peril from the unwillingness of Republicans to realize or care about Science. This is not our grandparents’ politics. This is, in every conceivable way, an existential battle for a sustainable future. Every indicator suggests that Republicans long ago brainwashed each other and a third of the national electorate into believing that global warming is a myth, that fossil fuels have a long and bright future, and that Critical Race Theory is the only thing keeping them from having the lives they want.
This week’s $5 tasting:
The forecast is for a major Heat Wave this weekend. We think these wines will offer particular refreshment for these conditions. Oh, and did we mention we have…wait for it…Air Conditioning…!
Bargemone Provence Rose ’20 France $14
Beautiful pale pink, with bright, mineral-dusted aromas of pink grapefruit and dried red berries. Light and racy on the palate, with tangy citrus and redcurrant flavors. Finishes brisk and dry, with good lingering spiciness and length.
Chasing Venus Sauv Blanc ’20 New Zealand $14
Bright, crisp, lively and refreshing, with tantalizing aromas of tropical fruit, lychee, and pineapple lead to big flavors of grapefruit, mango, papaya, gooseberry and lime.
Gamache Boulder Red ’17 Washington $16
Smooth and approachable red blend layered with depth and complexity. Aromas and flavors of blackberry, black cherry and blueberry. Pairs well with everyday fare from pizza to barbecued hamburgers.
2072 Granger Way