lummi island wine tasting sept 12 ’20
click on photos for larger images
Saturday Outdoor Wine Tastings By Appointment!
All of you Regulars know our friend Anne who lives a few hundred yards down the street. In the early days of the wine shop there were more than a few hours when she was our only guest. Many of you also know her daughter Julia who visits periodically from England, and her long-time-ago preppie classmate Jonathan who lives on Cape Cod. They were dimly acquainted back then, “re-met” at a school reunion a few years ago, and are now an established trans-Atlantic “item.” We always look forward to and enjoy their visits, and were pleased to join them on Anne’s flower-rich patio Monday night for wine and catching up.
As can happen these days, conversation centered on politics, and at some point they departed the scene to fetch something. About ten minutes later they came back wearing these Yo! Semite! T-shirts designed and distributed to friends by an iconic schoolmate. You may recognize the featured phrase from recent political news…and sorry, not available in Stores! Fun!
While Covid constrains and good weather continues, we are offering limited Saturday afternoon outdoor wine tastings by appointment for two parties of up to five people each. To minimize overlap between groups we are scheduling the first group for 2:30 and the second at 4:00. Tasting fee is $5 each for a flight of four wines. Social distancing rules will be observed, and hand sanitizer will be provided. See guidelines below.
NOTES:
1. Note that the two slots sometimes fill early in the week;
2. Due to the outdoor venue, reservations are weather-dependent. (We are exploring ways to extend our season a bit, we’ll see how that goes…)
Social Distancing Guidelines:
1. Everyone must wear a mask when they are not seated;
2. Groups sharing a table must be a “pod”of family or close friends that regularly share space together, or otherwise take responsibility for managing social distance within their group; and
3. Everyone agrees not to arrive before their appointment begins and to leave before it ends.
To make a reservation, call number next to our logo (above, right).
Wine of the Week: Pomum Red ’15
For this weekend’s tasting guests we return to an old favorite wine from a favorite Washington winemaker, Javier Alfonso of Pomum Cellars in Woodinville. The wine is his Pomum Red, a compelling blend of cab and cab franc, rounded out with malbec, petite syrah, and merlot. Javier grew up in Spain’s Ribero Del Duero region, and brings his heritage to his winemaking here in Washington. His wines show his preference for highly drinkable wines with rich, evolving, and lingering flavors, silky tannic depth and length, and a Muse that beckons “hey, Amigo, un vaso mas!”
A few years ago (OMD, just realized it has been eight!) Javier and wife Shyla made a surprise visit to the wine shop on a Saturday afternoon, and it was great fun. We remember this now because this weekend we are pouring his Pomum Red, and this vintage (sampling at this very moment!) is really Quite Delightful, with contrasting aromas and flavors of rich nectarine and blackberry fruit and a juicy, lingering finish.
He also has a second label we have carried for some years called Idilico. At the moment we have his Idilico Garnacha on the shelf, and in warmer weather we generally carry his Albarino as well. Both bear the fingerprints of his winemaking style, which generally means “yes, you’re gonna like it!”
Pomum Red ’15 Washington $19
Mostly cab and cab franc with malbec, petite verdot, merlot; aromas of both fresh and leathery red fruit and exotic spices; On the palate shows black cherry, cranberry and garrigue, fine elegant tannins and a long finish.
Dreamtime For Sale
For whatever reasons, the way our lives have gone in the last few years has not provided much support for sailing, and with some ambivalence we have made the difficult decision to put our Montgomery 23, Dreamtime on the market. She is presently moored at Squalicum Harbor in Bellingham, probably until the end of Drydock, when she will likely go back on her trailer for the winter behind CityMac in Bellingham.
This is a sweet boat to sail, but there never seems to be the time and commitment actually to get underway. Click on the Dreamtime Pics button at top of page to see more photos.
Only about 20 of these boats were made, all between 1979 and 1984. They have become something of a cult classic in a certain circle, along with their smaller counterparts, the Montgomery 17 and Montgomery 15.
Current asking price has been lowered to $15,500, which includes boat, custom trailer, Honda 9.9 outboard, and 8 ft Westmarine inflatable dinghy (with its ever-handy fold-down wheels!). Call or email for additional information (see logo area, above).
Mar a Lago Update: Economic Extinction
This morning, listening to the News on the radio, we had a hard time getting our heads around the number and extent of active wildfires in Washington, Oregon, and much of California. Huge swaths of forests, grasslands, and meadows have provided explosive fuel under conditions of scorching temperatures, tinder-dry fuel, and high winds. 400,000 acres went up in flames in 24 hours. Even the recently devastated California town of Paradise was revisited by yet another Fire. These fires have come on so suddenly, caused so much damage, and destroyed so much infrastructure so quickly that it is feeling increasingly Apocolyptic. Yet in the midst of it all, the Tweetster doubles down on subsidies for fossil fuel development on the fragile continental shelf and in sensitive wildlife refuges.
A warmer planet increases atmospheric temperatures and kinetic energy in the atmosphere, causing greater evaporation, more rainfall, and more flooding. We saw it last year in the Caribbean, and we saw it last week as first a tropical storm and then a hurricane hit the Gulf Coast in the space of a week.
As these risks increase, insurance rates and lending rates will be driven upward. At some point well before a property becomes physically uninhabitable, it will have already become economically uninhabitable as both buyers and lenders grow less and less willing to invest in it. Let’s face it; there is no undeveloped habitable place where 7 billion people can all go to find food, water, and shelter. The only sensible thing for us humans to do is to pull the emergency brake on our destructive habits.
lummi island wine tasting sept 5 ’20
click on photos for larger images
Saturday Outdoor Wine Tastings By Appointment!
While Covid and good weather continue, we are offering limited Saturday afternoon outdoor wine tastings by appointment for two parties of up to five people each. To minimize overlap between groups we are scheduling the first group for 2:30 and the second at 4:00. Tasting fee is $5 each for a flight of four wines. Social distancing rules will be observed, and hand sanitizer will be provided. See guidelines below.
NOTES:
1. Note that the two slots sometimes fill early in the week;
2. Due to the outdoor venue, reservations are weather-dependent. (We are exploring ways to extend our season a bit, we’ll see how that goes…)
Social Distancing Guidelines
1. Everyone must wear a mask when they are not seated;
2. Groups sharing a table must be a “pod”of family or close friends that regularly share space together, or otherwise take responsibility for managing social distance within their group; and
3. Everyone agrees not to arrive before their appointment begins and to leave before it ends.
To make a reservation, call number next to our logo (above, right).
Drydock Wine Supplies
We have been stocking up our wine shelves a bit for Annual Drydock, which we all know means passenger traffic only from Sept 12 – Oct 3. Even when we are NOT in a Pandemic most of us old-timers try to avoid the close quarters on the passenger ferry and hole up here on The Rock till the car ferry returns, all spiffed up and ready to serve yet another year. So this year it should be Very Quiet around here, except for the occasional strange chugging, coughing, pinging sounds from the “Island Cars” that come into service while the Real Car in on the mainland in case you need to go to town for some reason.
In preparation for the inevitable Claustrophobic binging needs that Drydock evokes (each week it gets a little worse) we have stocked up on popular favorite wines and added a few new ones that presented just too good a deal to pass up. See our current list on the “Order Wine” tab at the top of this page.
When you have made selections, you can submit an order as follows:
- Send an email with the names and quantities of each wine you would like to order;
- Phone: call us at the number next to our logo, above right, and leave a message.
- Appointment: If you would prefer to shop in person, call to make an appointment. You bring a mask, we will provide hand sanitizer, and sorry, no more than two visitors in the shop at a time.
It’s that Simple!
Dreamtime For Sale
For whatever reasons, the way our lives have gone in the last few years has not provided much support for sailing, and with some ambivalence we have made the difficult decision to put our Montgomery 23, Dreamtime on the market. She is presently moored at Squalicum Harbor in Bellingham, probably until the end of Drydock, when she will likely go back on her trailer for the winter behind CityMac in Bellingham.
This is a sweet boat to sail, but there never seems to be the time and commitment actually to get underway. Click on the Dreamtime Pics button at top of page to see more photos.
Only about 20 of these boats were made, all between 1979 and 1984. They have become something of a cult classic along with their smaller counterparts, the Montgomery 17 and Montgomery 15.
Current asking price has been lowered to $16,000, which includes boat, custom trailer, Honda 9.9 outboard, and 8 ft Westmarine inflatable dinghy (with it ever-handy fold-down wheels!). Call or email for additional information (see logo area, above).
Mar a Lago Update: On Dignity
A friend recently loaned us his copy of the recent New York Review of Books to read this article by Joseph O’Neill, in which he reviews at some length Code Red: How Progressives and Moderates Can Unite to Save Our Country, a new book by well-known Washington Post journalist E.J. Dionne.
O’Neill begins with this: Somewhat unexpectedly, ensuring the success of the Democratic Party has become the most important political project in the world…(U.S.) leadership is essential if the climate crisis and other world-historical dangers are to be overcome. This can happen only if Democrats dominate the national government for the best part of the next ten years (because)…the contemporary Republican Party is (according to Noam Chomsky) “the most dangerous organization in human history.”
Thus ensues a detailed summary of Dionne’s arguments in support of these ideas, beginning with the catastrophic confluence of the irresponsible hubris of Trumpian Republicanism with the Perfect Storm of the global Covid pandemic, Global Warming, accelerating species extinctions, desertification, sea level rise, the increasing uninhabitability of large portions of the Earth due to flooding, heat, and increasingly destructive storm winds; the ever-increasing concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands while the human population grows exponentially beyond what the planet can sustain; and the ongoing physical violence against and economic disenfranchisement of entire subgroups of our fellow citizens solely from self-serving habits of prejudice.
Because it has become increasingly clear over the past four years that Republicans are All In with Denying that any of these things exist or matter, Dionne’s working Hypothesis is that the only way Life as we Know It can be saved is with the leadership and example of the United States, the only country in the world that can (or could at one time) organize and lead such an effort. The key to such a major shift in American politics, says Dionne, is a new kind of Democratic Party, in which the petty squabbles among the Myriad Interests (after all, Democrats are by default Everyone who is Not a Republican) can be put aside in recognition of and commitment to a broadly defined concept of Dignity.
By this he means a broad philosophical commitment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” The concept links issues of justice; recognition; the distributional effects of taxation, economic, and environmental policy; workers’ rights; and equal opportunities. In short, Dignity seems to focus what we usually think of as Equality from the more abstract to more measurable kinds of outcomes. An interesting idea…
lummi island wine tasting august 28 ’20
click on photos for larger images
Saturday Outdoor Wine Tastings By Appointment!
We have tidied up the wine shop entrance area to accommodate limited Saturday afternoon outdoor wine tasting appointments for two parties of up to four people each. To minimize overlap between groups we are scheduling the first group for 2:30 and the second at 4:00. Tasting fee is $5 each for a flight of four wines. Social distancing rules will be observed, and hand sanitizer will be provided. See guidelines below.
NOTES:
1. The two slots sometimes fill early in the week;
2. Due to the outdoor venue, reservations are weather-dependent. (We are exploring ways to extend our season a bit, we’ll see how that goes…)
Social Distancing Guidelines
1. Everyone must wear a mask when they are not seated;
2. Groups sharing a table must be a “pod”of family or close friends that regularly share space together, or otherwise take responsibility for managing social distance within their group; and
3. Everyone agrees not to arrive before their appointment begins and to leave before it ends.
To make a reservation, call number next to our logo (above, right).
Stocking Up for Drydock
We are now two weeks away from annual Drydock for our trusty Whatcom Chief. As usual there will be a passenger-only boat making regular runs across Hales Passage from Sept 12 – Oct 3. And due to the risks of Covid transmission in the close quarters of the passenger cabin, it is likely that many of us will not venture off the island at all during this year’s Drydock.
Therefore we want to alert you to check if your wine inventories might need a little padding to get you through. We will be stocking up a bit as well, hopefully enough to assure that No One will have to go Without Wine (OMD, the Horror!).
Use the Order Wine link above, or call, or email any orders!
We have been stocking up a bit for Annual Ferry Drydock which will run for three weeks beginning Sept 12. We all know the close quarters on the passenger ferry, so chances are most of us Old-timers will try to hole up here on the island till the car ferry returns in early October. We have stocked up on popular favorite wines and added a few new wines that presented just too good a deal to pass up. See the current list on the “Order Wine” tab at the top of this page.
When you have made selections, you can submit an order as follows:
- Send an email with the names and quantities of each wine you would like to order;
- Phone: call us at the number next to our logo, above right, and leave a message.
- Appointment: If you would prefer to shop in person, call to make an appointment. You bring a mask, we will provide hand sanitizer, and sorry, no more than two visitors in the shop at a time.
It’s that Simple!
Dreamtime For Sale
For whatever reasons, the way our lives have gone in the last few years has not provided much support for much sailing, and with some ambivalence we have made the difficult decision to put our Montgomery 23, Dreamtime , on the market. She is presently moored at Squalicum Harbor in Bellingham, probably until the end of Drydock, when she will likely go back on her trailer for the winter behind CityMac in Bellingham.
We confess some ambivalence about this decision. This is a sweet boat to sail, but there never seems to be the time and commitment actually to get underway. Click on the Dreamtime Links button at top of page to see more photos.
Only about 20 of these boats were made, all between 1979 and 1984. They have become something of a cult classic along with their smaller counterparts, the Montgomery 17 and Montgomery 15.
As of today (8/27) asking price has been lowered to $16,000. Call for additional information.
Mar a Lago Update: Authoritarians and Hungry Ghosts
Today’s interview with Nixon White House Counsel John Dean on Democracy Now! focused on the release of his new book ,Authorian Nightmare, with co-author Bob Altemeyer, a psychology professor with long experience studying the subject. In a way the book follows the theme of Dean’s earlier book a decade ago, Conservatives Without Conscience, which explored the increasing domination of the Republican Party by authoritarian personalities, both leaders and followers.
Authoritarianism is Scary Stuff. You can get a feel for it in this video clip from the classic 1972 film Cabaret. The scene chillingly captures the authoritarian fervor of the Nazi Youth movement in Germany in the early 1930’s. It is not unlike the MAGA movement of today’s Trump supporters, who cheer whenever he denigrates or punishes Blacks, Immigrants,Women, Democrats, long-time European allies, Reporters…everyone and anyone who dares to criticize him or hesitates to do his bidding.
Before our eyes, Trump (like all of us) is acting out his inner psychology with every word and action, and these words and actions tell the story behind the story. All of his actions point to a person (as his niece suggests in her book) who, like his siblings, experienced enough neglect and abuse as an infant and very young child as to deeply imbue two Unconscious Core Beliefs that have shaped his entire life. First: No One is Ever Really Going to Be There for Me. Second, by inference; There must be Something Terribly Wrong with Me. Thus has ensued a lifetime of his particular Dumb Cycle (we all have our own):
Seeks Approval by getting Attention –> Can’t absorb Nourishment from resultant Attention –> Seeks Approval by getting Attention –> etc.
While it may be a bit of a stretch, this feeling is curiously well-illustrated in the first 1:25 of this song from Superstar, which can easily be taken as a narcissistic lament from a Hungry Ghost. It is a metaphor for all of us who yearn for something so deeply that there is not enough of it in the Universe to fulfill our hunger. Trump seems more like a Hungry Ghost than a Dark Lord. But that doesn’t mean the Dark Lords (those who choreographed the Republican “convention,” four nights of Outright Lies) do not find him Useful. On the contrary, it is entirely likely They are using Him to their own self-serving ends. As the old saying goes, “When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the Flag and carrying a Cross.”
Certainly there is one unmistakable takeaway from the recent Conventions: the Democrats are all about Unification and Inclusion, while the Republicans are all about Division and Exclusion. The Democrats appeal to our Better Angels, and the Republicans to our Worst. What the World needs right now is a global commitment to save our planet from the damage we humans have already caused. The Right has made it clear they would rather end all life on the planet than give up the short-term gains from undiminished fossil fuel use. Their attitude is remarkably well portrayed by the image of Hunter S. Thompson as described in this interview with (we’re not making this up!) Johnny Depp.
lummi island wine tasting aug 21 ’20
click on photos for larger images
Saturday Outdoor Wine Tastings By Appointment!
We have tidied up the wine shop entrance area to accommodate limited Saturday afternoon outdoor wine tasting appointments for two parties of up to four people each. To minimize overlap between groups we are scheduling the first group for 2:30 and the second at 4:00. Tasting fee is $5 each for a flight of four wines. Social distancing rules will be observed, and hand sanitizer will be provided. See guidelines below.
NOTES:
1. The two slots sometimes fill early in the week;
2. Due to the outdoor venue, reservations are weather-dependent. (We are exploring ways to extend our season a bit, we’ll see how that goes…)
Social Distancing Guidelines
1. Everyone must wear a mask when they are not seated;
2. Groups sharing a table must be a “pod”of family or close friends that regularly share space together, or otherwise take responsibility for managing social distance within their group; and
3. Everyone agrees not to arrive before their appointment begins and to leave before it ends.
To make a reservation, call number next to our logo (above, right).
Stocking Up for Drydock
We are deeply grateful for the continuing support of your phone and email wine orders over the past five months of Covid Closure. (Five Months? Really? Where has the time gone??) .
We have been stocking up a bit for Annual Ferry Drydock which will run for three weeks beginning Sept 12. We all know the close quarters on the passenger ferry, so chances are most of us Old-timers will try to hole up here on the island till the car ferry returns in early October. We have stocked up on popular favorite wines and added a few new wines that presented just too good a deal to pass up. See the current list on the “Order Wine” tab at the top of this page.
When you have made selections, you can submit an order as follows:
- Send an email with the names and quantities of each wine you would like to order;
- Phone: call us at the number next to our logo, above right, and leave a message.
- Appointment: If you would prefer to shop in person, call to make an appointment. You bring a mask, we will provide hand sanitizer, and sorry, no more than two visitors in the shop at a time.
It’s that Simple!
Attention Shoppers!
A few weeks ago we wandered around the weekly Friday bread pickup pouring tastes of a very inexpensive Spanish blend of garnacha and carinena (grenache/carignan) packed in a wooden case for $84 (that’s right, $7 per bottle!). The wine is from Castillo de Monseran with these tasting notes:
An easy drinking, fruit-driven wine. Herbal overtones on the nose, bursting with ripe berry and plum fruit typical of Garnacha. Soft and round on the palate with gentle, well-integrated tannins making it suitable to be enjoyed while young. Lingering red fruit on the finish.
In full disclosure, we admit a certain bias toward any blend that includes carinena (aka carignan in France), but then again we have high expectations. As we mentioned a few weeks ago, the first tasting was quite impressive, only to find (as sometimes happens) it was not nearly as good the next day. If you like red blends with big fruit flavors and a soft texture you may find this a great value. We’ll bring some to Friday Bread pickup if you want to try it!
And remember: you get a nice wooden box with a sliding lid if you buy a case!
Mar a Lago Update: Are They ALL Crooks?
An article in today’s Washington Post nicely captures the rapid Descent of the Republican Party over the past five years. Beginning with the clusterf8%ks that were the Republican Presidential Debates in 2015, the entire Party has wholeheartedly ridden the Train to Hell with the Tweetster-in-Chief. One by one all of them (except Mitt Romney, whom we salute for his moral courage) have either voluntarily left office and/or their Party, or have discarded without apology every one of the supposed “principles” they had long claimed were their Bedrock Beliefs and Commitments.
In this article, Jennifer Rubin succinctly and effectively lists enough examples of this blatant Republican Hypocrisy to illustrate her point: “The party has become a smash-and-grab operation — smash democratic norms and institutions, and grab the limelight and cash for however long they can.”
This Reality is in sharp contrast to the last four days of inspiring voices streaming into our homes from the Virtual Democratic Convention. It is certainly a relief to be immersed in a little Hope again with millions of like-minded people after four painful and exhausting years of watching everything we children of the Fifties held dear about our country rolled back or erased completely— including most basically that whatever else might be going on, We Were the Good Guys, committed to Right vs. Might, and NOT the other way around.
Sadly, that concept has been eroding since at least 1980, accelerating sharply in the Dubya Administration, which was heavily under the influence of the Project for the New American Century, the primary Neocon think tank that also spawned the the American Enterprise Institute and the pre-911 idea that “What we need (to get some policy traction) is a New Pearl Harbor.” History shows they had plans on the table to use a 911-like event to leverage the immediate invasion of Afghanistan, followed a year later by the 2003 U.S. invasion (and wholesale destruction) of Iraq, billions of dollars unaccountably “lost,” and both everyday infratructure and ancient cultural artifacts looted or destroyed.
Bill Kristol, one of the founding members of this war-mongering group, now appears regularly as a Tweetster Critic, probably because the T is more motivated toward social adulation than Global Dominance. So do not be fooled into thinking that these Neocon guys are now our Friends. On the contrary, there is evidence that Blackwater Dark Lord Eric Prince (who is, btw, brother of far-right Education Secretary Betsy Devos) had links to the recent Fed presence in Portland and other cities, possibly causing the “crime and vandalism” that “justified” their presence. There’s a lot going on, and it is not a big stretch to imagine that these people do not have our best interests at heart.
We may have many other menacing threats than the Tweetster to worry about and respond to, including a global pandemic; economic depression; racial inequality; and the growing costs of global climate change. Forces are likely already at work to rig the election in various ways. We can all Feel that tension between Hope and Fear. The last four years of 24/7 Mad-Hatter insanity have taught us that the Rules no longer matter, and our election could turn out exactly like the recent election in Belarus: Dictator Wins Landslide Victory! NOOOOOOOoooooo!
Arrrr, these be difficult times, lads; let’s keep a sharp Eye to Weather, keep our powder dry, ‘n’ take Nothin’ for Granted!
2072 Granger Way