lummi island wine tasting dec 15 ’23
Winter Hours: Open Fridays 4-6pm
Happy Holidays!
We will be open both Fridays before Christmas for wine tasting and sales, 12/15 and 12/22.
January reopening will probably 1/12, depending on some possible changes in the bread delivery schedule.
Friday Bread Pickup This Week…
Black Pepper Walnut- made with a nice mix of flours, bread flour, fresh milled whole wheat and rye. A fair amount of black pepper and toasted walnuts give this bread great flavor with just a bit of peppery bite to it. Works well with all sorts of meats and cheese- $5/loaf
Four Seed Buttermilk – Includes all the elements of whole wheat, adding cracked wheat and bran in to the bread flour instead of milling whole wheat berries. It also has buttermilk and oil for a tender bread and a little tang, and finished with a bit of honey and sunflower, pumpkin, and sesame seeds and toasted millet $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Morning Buns – Made popular by Tartine Bakery in San Francisco…mine are made with the same laminated dough as croissants. The dough is rolled out, spread with a filling of brown sugar, orange zest, butter and cinnamon, rolled up and sliced before baking. 2/$5
Island Bakery has developed a lengthy rotation cycle of several dozen breads and pastries. Each Sunday Janice emails the week’s bread offering to her mailing list. Orders received before Wednesday will be available for pickup at the wine shop each Friday from 4:00 – 5:30 pm. Go to Contact us to get on the bread email list.
This week’s wine tasting
Marchetti Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico ’21 Italy $14
Verdicchio/ Malvasia blend using only free-run juice; pale straw color with green overtones; intense bouquet of citrus, lemon zest, and floral notes,with complex fruity character, and crisp, well-balanced palate.
Sanguineti Morellino de Scansano ’21 Italy $14
Soil of river stones, quartz, sea shells; flavors of sun-ripened, slightly smoky fruit, fresh cracked pepper, sage, and ocean brine; taut structure and a long, slightly smoky finish.
Lancyre Pic St Loup Vielles Vignes ’17 France $16
100 % malbec; unfolds with dark, enchanting notes of blackberry, grilled plum, and jammy raspberry with accents of orange peel, vanilla, and tobacco spice, finishing with balanced structure, plush texture, and a lengthy finish.
Lovo Fior d’Arancio Sparkling Moscato ’18 Italy $15
A very rare clone of Moscato with an unmistakable citrus scent from nearby orange groves for a sparkling wine with refined bubbles and beautiful, pearlescent color, a perfect accompaniment to dessert, or maybe dessert all by itself!
Wine of the Week: Marchetti Verdicchio di Castelli di Jesi Classico ’21 Italy $14
The Marche wine region reaches east from the mountainous spine of Italy to the Adriatic. This week’s low-yield Verdicchio is a hallmark of the varietal, with refreshing citrus fruits, playful acidity, and complex minerality. Made only with juice from a gentle half-press, it is precise and engaging.
Established in 1968 as a DOC of 18 hilly communes, the Verdicchio Classico, or Castelli di Jesi, region, is located some 35 kilometers inland from Ancona, an unusual wine region near the Adriatic coast where red grapes are grown close to the sea, and white grapes prefer to be slightly inland. The distinction of being “Classico” is a recognition that “this is what wine from this grape is meant to taste like!”
Wine history of the region dates back to the Romans and before, with some clay artifacts such as amphorae dating the region’s wine production back to the Iron Age. These days, the verdicchios from the region have developed a consistent quality and tasting profile that sets them apart.
Economics of the Heart: Getting on Track Against Climate Change
The world has known for many decades about the linkage between fossil fuels and global warming. Numerous studies contracted by the oil industry as early as the mid-seventies pioneered effective methodologies for assessing the financial, social, environmental, and economic impacts of these projected changes.
Over the years the broad impacts predicted by those early models have proved surprisingly accurate in modeling how increased greenhouse gases would affect patterns of atmospheric and oceanic circulation, evaporation, rainfall, winds, flooding, ocean currents, ice cap responses, all of it. I had a part in one of those studies in 1980 looking at the possible impacts of global warming on world fisheries.
While I was skeptical that the political and economic power of the fossil fuel industry was likely to allow meaningful or timely response to this very serious environmental threat, I never dreamed the industry would not only delay action for four decades, but also go to considerable expense to downplay any threat of global warming, (and probably supplying Reagan with his quip that it had more to do with livestock farts than fossil fuels.) The whole world would not be in the mess it is today if energy industry executives had chosen to help rather than delay and obfuscate– as, we presume, they had been taught to do in business school.
Well, hopefully the decisions of this latest COP 28 will prove better late than never. The resultant unanimous agreement at this meeting seems due to the work of the the High-Level Expert Group on the Net-Zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Entities, a special committee formed by the Secretary-General of the UN specifically to increase the likelihood of success. The goal of the group was, in preparation for the recent COP23 meeting, to develop stronger and clearer standards for net-zero emissions pledges by non-State entities – including businesses, investors, cities, and regions – and speed up their implementation. The Group generated ten how-to recommendations for credible, accountable net-zero pledges for what non-State actors need to follow to achieve net-zero ambitions, a how-to guide for credible, accountable net-zero pledges.
Since it was launched last spring, the Group pursued its work amidst a persistent pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, global inflation, energy security concerns, and
increasingly destructive climate change‐fueled extreme weather around the world. Climate-related disasters have been most acutely felt in the world’s least developed countries, exacerbating the debt crisis they already face and underlining how the developed economies exported the environmental costs of their years of inaction onto the poorest societies.
This is apparent when we see that the Top Five global emitters (China, US, India, EU, and Russia) accounted for about 60 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions in 2021, and the Group of 20 (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union) are responsible for about 76 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Read more on UN and climate action:
Transforming climate issues into action
“Integrity Matters: Net Zero commitments by Businesses, Financial Institutions, Cities and Regions”
lummi island wine tasting dec 8 ’23
Winter Hours: Open Fridays 4-6pm
LI slough with heron
Friday Bread Pickup This Week!
Buckwheat Rye – Fresh milled buckwheat and rye flours are soaked for several hours without any yeast in a method known as an autolyse. As buckwheat has no gluten and rye has very little, the autolyse allows the grain to start the overnight fermenting process in the refrigerator. The buckwheat-rye soaker is then mixed with bread flour, salt, yeast and a bit of honey. Goes well with all sorts of meats and cheese – $5/loaf
Whole Grain Spelt Sweet Levain – Also made with a levain of freshly milled whole wheat and whole spelt before mixing with bread flour and a nice combination of dried apricots, golden raisins, slivered almonds and both sunflower and flax seeds. Chock full of flavor!– $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Bear Claws! – Made with a Danish pastry dough rich in cream, eggs, sugar and butter. The dough is rolled out and spread with a filing made with almond paste, powdered sugar, egg whites and a bit of cinnamon to round out the flavor. Then, because all us bears love honey, topped with a honey glaze after baking! –2/$5
Island Bakery has developed a lengthy rotation cycle of several dozen breads and pastries. Each Sunday Janice emails the week’s bread offering to her mailing list. Orders received before Wednesday will be available for pickup at the wine shop each Friday from 4:00 – 5:30 pm. Go to Contact us to get on the bread email list.
This week’s wine tasting
Ponzi Pinot Gris ’21 Oregon $16
Aromas of honeydew melon, candied citrus peel, white peach and honeysuckle; balanced palate
of sweet tangerine peel, meringue, lime, apricot and light white pepper.
Angeline Cab Sauv ’21 California $16
Fruit-forward, easy-to-drink style with aromas of lush cherry, cassis, and plum and rich cherry and plum flavors with hints of vanilla and soft oak that linger on the palate and finish with complexity and length that over-delivers for the modest price.
Muga Anden Estacion Rioja Crianza ’19 Spain $21
Tempranillo/Garnacha blend matured in French and European barrels for 14 months, making for a floral, juicy, open and approachable rioja. read more
Wine of the Week: Muga El Andén de la Estación Crianza ’19 Spain $21
“our” stork nest in Haro…
Pied de cuve is a technique used by winemakers to develop a local wild yeast indigenous to a particular vineyard to ferment wines made from that vineyard’s grapes. Muga uses this process in the fermentation of this week’s featured wine. The process begins by picking a small amount of grapes shortly before the full harvest which are crushed and allowed to start fermenting from the native yeasts already present on the grapes. This culture is then added to the rest of the grapes when they are picked to initiate fermentation. In organic and biodynamic viniculture, these yeasts are part of the local conditions that define every vineyard…its terroir.
We visited the Muga winery in Haro some years ago. Unfortunately, we also had some kind of bug that forced us to cancel several other winery visits we had scheduled. So we laid low, took some short walks through Haro’s narrow streets, and…during our convalescence we were entertained by the stork pair nesting about thirty feet away on the rooftop directly across the narrow street from our little second-floor apartment.
Curiously, despite having been under the weather, our memories are fond ones. Haro is a small community, in a pretty arid landscape surrounded by vineyards, with good food, charming and friendly people, and a surprising number of rooftop stork nests. What more could you want??
This week’s lovely Rioja is big, luscious, nuanced, and powerful, from young vineyards acquired and developed by Muga over recent decades. Seriously tasty!
Economics of the Heart: Freedom From Religion
The First Amendment to the US Constitution reads: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
We usually have thought about the First Amendment as “Freedom of Religion,” which could easily be interpreted as “you can practice any religion you want.” But it can also be looked at as “you don’t have to have any religion at all if you don’t want one,” which immunizes you from the beliefs, practices, and superstitions of the followers of any and all religious sects. After all, since everyone tends to look at their own religion as the Truth, and everyone else’s religion as Superstition, the Supremacy Clause logically leaves the matter for individual conscience.
Last night NPR presented an interview with author Tim Alberta about his new book “The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism.” He is a young man whose father was a pastor at an evangelical church through his adolescence. Mr. Alberta speaks with clarity about how Evangelicals embraced the Tweetster early on as their own apostate representative in government who would remake America into the Christian Nation they fantasize it has always been. The takeaways from this insight are the double delusions that 1) he really cared about their beliefs, and 2) he shares their delusion that the United States has always been an “explicitly Christian Nation, not just informed by Judeo-Christian principles and values, but explicitly formed to be a Christian nation that has to be recovered and restored.”
It has also become clear in the past couple of weeks that the new Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, is a very far right, self-identified Christian evangelical who is very open about his intention to impose fundamentalist Christian views on the entire country, somehow outlawing all other religions, including, we may presume, any which are soft on abortion, same-gender marriage and adoption, and birth control. And this man is, at this very moment, only two heartbeats away from being the President of this country.
All this is going on in an America which is becoming increasingly secular. According to recent statistical analysis, although a slight majority of Americans consider themselves Christian, between 2006 and 2020 the number of self-identified “white evangelicals” dropped from 23% to 14%; the percentage of white Americans who considered themselves “white non-evangelical” remained constant at 16%, and white Catholics declined slightly from 16% to 12%.
Of particular interest is the rapid increase in the number of Americans who have no religious affiliation from 16% in 2006 to around 25% by 2020.
It is clear from the numbers and from Mr. Alberta’s observations that white evangelicals who cling to the fantasy of America as “their” country are feeling threatened by immigration of non-whites (even Christians ), people of other faiths or agnostics, and their abandonment by a growing proportion of young voters. They are over-reacting to these perceived threats by grasping at the Tweetster’s promises to take care of them if only he can acquire the Presidency again.
In the meantime the Republican Party has devolved into complete inability to discuss actual policy or to comprehend the consequences of their extended party-wide psychotic break. It is therefore something of a comfort to see the clear thinking of a young life-long evangelical who is speaking out on these issues.
lummi island wine tasting dec 1 ’23
Winter Hours: Open Fridays 4-6pm
Okay, we are back after some Thanksgiving travel, plan to be open through December 22, and looking forward to seeing you.
It’s been a chilly week here on the Island…this photo was intended to show all the tiny raindrops aglow with light behind them…in any case, it is starting to get soggy and dark around here…!
Friday Bread Pickup This Week!
Fig Anise – One of the more popular breads in the rotation. Made with a sponge that is fermented overnight, then the final dough is mixed with bread flour and fresh milled whole wheat. Honey, dried figs and anise bring in all the flavors of the Mediterranean. – $5/loaf
Sesame Semolina -Begins with a sponge that ferments some of the flour, water & yeast before mixing the final dough. Made with semolina and bread flour as well as a soaker of cornmeal, millet and sesame seeds, a little olive oil rounds out the flavor and tenderizes the crumb.– $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 as if that wasn’t enough, topped with a chocolate glaze before baking. Ooh la la, what’s not to like. I can only make a limited number so be sure to get your order in early. –2/$5
Island Bakery has developed a lengthy rotation cycle of several dozen breads and pastries. Each Sunday Janice emails the week’s bread offering to her mailing list. Orders received before Wednesday will be available for pickup at the wine shop each Friday from 4:00 – 5:30 pm. Go to Contact us to get on the bread email list.
This week’s wine tasting
Juggernaut Chardonnay ’21 Sonoma $17
Aromas of apple, Asian pear and lemon meringue open to flavors of stone fruit, honeysuckle and yellow plum made rich and lingering using barrel fermentation and sur lie aging; finishes with notes of vanilla bean, and butter cream with hints of baking spices and clove.
Can Blau Can Blau ’20 Spain $16
Aromas and flavors of cocoa bean and ripe, dark fruits and berries, a seamless texture, and long, silky finish that improves with aeration.
Phantom Red Blend ’20 WA $17
Petite Sirah- Zinfandel blend delivers palate of dark blackberry and boysenberry with pepper notes and on a balanced structure with tantalizing layers of baking spices sandt velvety tannins.
Wine of the Week: Phantom Red Blend ’20 California $17
The Bogle winery– a group of wineries these days– is a stone’s throw west of the Sacramento River, and about equidistant from Sacramento and Lodi in the Sierra foothills. It’s a big outfit, with 2000 acres of vineyards, a constellation of wine labels, and local roots tracing back to a Civil War vet and his nephew who moved to the area in the 1870’s. They grew orchards which they farmed until the Depression made them tenant farmers in nearby Clarksville. Over succeeding decades they planted vineyards, and now have an extensive portfolio of vineyards and wine labels.
“Each lot of grapes that goes into our Phantom program is hand selected from the multiple vineyards we have,” says Director of Winemaking Eric Aafedt. “We are looking for the grapes with notable quality and character to create a ‘reserve’ tier of wines.”
The best grapes are selected for the Phantom wines, and spend an extra year in 1- and 2-year-old American & French oak,” says Eric. “This time in the barrel creates a deeper concentration, a subtler touch of tannin and a richer mouthfeel for the wine.”
Phantom also has a unique and personal story to its name…”Bogle” is the Scottish word for “ghost.” Legends tell of a Phantom that stalked the hillsides of Scotland, only to travel to the New World and settle with the Bogle’s here in California. Today, sightings continue to occur at the family’s winery.
Economics of the Heart: Matters of Honor Revisited
While browsing through some old posts we found this one from October of 2019, shortly before the first Impeachment trial of the Tweetster, We all recall the circumstances that led to it: his attempts to coerce Ukrainian President Zelensky into starting a bogus investigation of Hunter Biden as a way to discredit his most likely opponent in the 2020 Presidential election. Instead it precipitated an investigation which led to the Tweetster’s first Impeachment trial in the U. S. House of Representatives in December, 2019.
It is a bit of a shock to see that those issues from four very long years ago remain essentially the same today. If anything, the unethical and self-serving conduct of our so-called “Head of State” (no, not where he disposed of documents), and the all-too-willing closing of ranks of Congressional Republicans around the tangle of false narratives that excused him from accountability.
What follows is the original essay from four years ago— before Covid, before the 2020 campaign, election, Capitol Riot, Big Lie, Second Impeachment, year-long House investigation, the Four Felony Indictments, and the never-ending stream of Alternative Facts from pretty much every Congressional Republican. As Liz Cheney points out in her newly released book (yes, she IS greasing the rails for her own run for the White House), they all still support the Big Lie, the elevation of an Authoritarian Church over the Constitution, and disenfranchisement of vast numbers of Americans from any right to vote and have their vote counted.
for all that has happened, precious little has changed; see below post from four years ago…
October, 2019
We find ourselves unconsciously contrasting the apparent character of some of the players in the current News Cycle– the Tweetster, Secretary Pompeo, Senator Graham, and Ambassador Taylor among them. And in particular we are musing on the apparently archaic notion of “honor,” most eloquently described in a short paragraph written in 1899 by John Walter Wayland, an historian from Virginia, in his winning response to a contest conducted by the Baltimore Sun looking for the best definition of a True Gentleman. He wrote:
“The True Gentleman is the man whose conduct proceeds from good will and an acute sense of propriety, and whose self-control is equal to all emergencies; who does not make the poor man conscious of his poverty, the obscure man of his obscurity, or any man of his inferiority or deformity; who is himself humbled if necessity compels him to humble another; who does not flatter wealth, cringe before power, or boast of his own possessions or achievements; who speaks with frankness but always with sincerity and sympathy; whose deed follows his word; who thinks of the rights and feelings of others, rather than his own; and who appears well in any company, a man with whom honor is sacred and virtue safe.”
These days we rarely speak of “gentlemen” in these terms or any other, or think much about character, honor, loyalty, service, or grace. Yet when we think about the values enshrined in our Constitution, we see the same principled aspirations. And it used to be comforting to imagine our nation would always choose leaders who would embrace these values in their dealings with us, with each other, and with other nations.
Ambassador Taylor stands out to us as personifying these values over some fifty years in the military and in foreign service, demonstrating by his actions a firm stand on principle. In contrast, Secretary Pompeo, like Taylor was a distinguished West Point graduate and military veteran. But unlike Taylor he has chosen to compromise his honor and principles by witnessing and going along with the Tweetster’s extortion attempt on the Ukraine President, and now dissembles about it, when he has been trained to know that an evasive statement is as dishonest as a Lie. He should have heeded Michael Cohen’s advice, that the Tweetster would Drag them all Down as he did Mr. Cohen. We confess some disappointment with Pompeo’s choices.
Mr. Graham, in contrast to both, is typical of an entire class of contemporary politicians, who can assert one thing today and its exact opposite tomorrow if that is what expediency demands. If Pompeo’s honor is in tatters, Graham’s (and many others) have none and have no idea what it is or what is means. All exigency orbits around a single idea: remaining in power at all cost.
Finally there is the Tweetster himself, a bizarre melding of bete noir and enfant terrible, a man who is completely incapable of telling the truth about Anything, as if some traumatic childhood experience taught him that his Emotional World Would End (like Daddy disapproving or Mommy disappearing…?) if he admitted Anything about Anything. “Honor” is to him, like a Hurricane at sea, “most devoutly to be eschewed,” because it would surely lead to unbearable Pain. Instead, like all psychopaths, he has a gift for telling people what he instinctively knows they want to hear so much they will compromise their values to hear it…as every con man does, and as Michael Cohen warned.
At the moment we have Republicans falling over themselves trying to court the Tweetster’s favor, as if they are in some kind of trance. If his astonishing betrayal of the Kurds, strongly suggesting a deliberate and treasonous collusion to help Russia and Turkey, isn’t enough to terrify his disciples enough about the implications of Another Term to call them to Action, things could get Really Ugly Really Soon.
….and so they have, and Republicans are just beginning to show some tentative inching away from the Tweetster as evidence against him mounts
lummi island wine tasting nov 24-25 Thanksgiving weekend
SORRY, CLOSED NOVEMBER 24-25
Well, Thanksgiving being what it is, with the joys and busy-ness of family gatherings, there has not generally been much interest — or energy– in adding more social contact.
Therefore we are taking the weekend off as well.
Wine shop hours returning to normal next weekend with Bread Friday and maybe even Saturdays for December.
Friday Bread Returns Next Week
No bread orders or deliveries this weekend.
If you are already on the mailing list you should receive the bread/pastry menu for next week by email on Sunday.
Island Bakery has developed a lengthy rotation cycle of several dozen breads and pastries. Each Sunday Janice emails the week’s bread offering to her mailing list. Orders received before Wednesday will be available for pickup at the wine shop each Friday from 4:00 – 5:30 pm. Go to Contact us to get on the bread email list.
Happy Post- Thanksgiving Relaxation!
Hoping all of you in our extended wine shop family are enjoying a warm and cozy Thanksgiving weekend, and looking forward to seeing you again next weekend!
2072 Granger Way
