Comments Off on lummi island wine tasting july 24 ’20

lummi island wine tasting july 24 ’20

Posted at July 23, 2020

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New: Saturday 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. Last Saturday we had three groups at intervals through the afternoon, and it worked very well for both our guests and us. This week we are accepting reservations for two groups of four people, the first at 2:30 and the second at 4:00. Tasting fee is $5 for a flight of four wines. Social distancing rules will be observed, and hand sanitizer will be provided. See guidelines below.

Two weeks ago we had a trial  run of an outdoor tasting for four on the front deck of the wine shop. We learned a lot, and had a good time in the process– it was good to be back!

As shown at left, our local sales rep you all recognize continues to keep us stocked up with tasty wines at attractive prices. See offer below for one we tasted just today (Thursday).

There are Three Rules for Tastings:
1. Everyone must wear a mask whenever they are not seated;
2. Groups sharing a table must be a “pod” like a 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.

Obviously seating is very limited; call number next to our logo (above, right)  or email us at  info@artisanwineclub.com to make a reservation.

 

Ordering Wine Online

We are grateful for the continuing support of your phone and email wine orders while the Shutdown continues. We think we have put together a worthy selection of better-than-average-for-the-price wines to suit the demands of this stressful time.

You can order wine for pickup here at the wine shop or at Friday Bread Pickup at the ferry parking lot. Just click on the “Order Wine” heading at the top of this page for a partial list of our current offerings.

When you have made selections, you can submit an order as follows:

It’s that Simple!

 

 

Attention Shoppers!

We are happy to offer our Faithful a limited-time opportunity to order a very tasty Spanish blend of garnacha and carinena (grenache/carignan)  packed in a wooden case for $96 (that’s right, $8.00 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.

Folks, this is a great deal! In full disclosure we admit a certain bias toward any blend that includes carignan (aka carinena in Spain). If you like red blends with big  fruit flavors and a soft texture you will find this a great value. Let us know asap if you want some; minimum orders six bottles.

 

 

 

Mar a Lago Update: The Existential Fear of Chaos

Most of the polls are now showing Joe Biden leading by 10 or 15 points in polling surveys. It should be comforting, but it isn’t. And the main reason it is not comforting is that the last four years have taught us that Facts– you know, the observable and verifiable measures of Reality Itself– have been rendered largely obsolete by the Cognitive Quicksand of the New Republicanism. Examples include the 20,000 (Twenty Thousand) documented Public Lies told by the Tweetster in Chief since taking office; every single thing ever uttered by Senate Majority Leader McScoundrel; the shameful, adolescent whining of the Republicans on the House Impeachment Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee, dedicated Authoritarian AG Barr, and many, many more.

At every turn leading Congressional Republicans have supported every action of the Fake President to destroy the global climate and Life that depends on it, to destroy the prestige and power of the United States around the world, and to continually  put a heel to the poor to favor the rich in their legislative agenda. And by the way, during these last four years they have turned their backs completely on the historic Republican “values” of strong alliances, strong military, and balanced budgets.

We have discussed over recent months the many parallels between the messaging of the Republican Party and the deliberate, ongoing, crazy-making destruction of facts under Hitler, Stalin, Franco, Mao, and many more as described in On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder. These are precisely the same tactics. Right-wing network giants like Fox and the associated array of religious radio stations use to advocate and amplify the same politics. It is appropriate to fear these forces. These are powerful people with no sentimental attachment to the Constitution or other noble values.

Our deep-seated Fear is that the Right has split so far from the founding values of our nation that they no longer have any will to support them. On the contrary, the indications are everywhere that they now see their role as to start a rebellion against those values, ultimately perhaps to strip away much of the Bill of Rights in the process. They have gone this far, our Unconscious tells us, without apology or ethical concern. And it is logical to fear that no set of rules will keep them from playing every dirty trick in the book to win.

As economist Joan Robinson put it many years ago: Every economic system requires a set of values, a set of rules, and a will in the people to carry them out.

If the values are not universally shared, the system is in Big Trouble.  No wonder we are uneasy…

 

Wine Tasting
Comments Off on lummi island wine tasting july 18 ’20

lummi island wine tasting july 18 ’20

Posted at July 16, 2020

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New: Wine Tasting By Appointment

For the past couple of months we have been exploring how we might recapture some of the living energy of our usual weekly wine tastings at the ferry overflow parking lot for a couple of hours on Friday afternoons. Since Janice had already established the venue for weekly Bread Pickup and Happy Hour, it seemed worth a try. But after some reflection on how that has gone, we have decided NOT to continue the practice. Instead, we will drop down to pick up our bread, put out our chairs, and join you to schmooze, share a little wine, and visit in the relative safety of the spacious outdoor setting.

We have tidied up the wine shop entrance area to accommodate very limited Saturday afternoon outdoor wine tasting appointments for groups of up to four people at a table. There will be the usual tasting fee of $5 for members, $10 for non-members. Social distancing rules will be observed, hand sanitizer will be provided, and masks are encouraged.

The current plan is for two sittings per Saturday, at 3:00 and 4:30. Our goal is to have little or no overlap between parties, and adequate social distancing both between and within the separate parties. Any group that chooses to share a table takes responsibility for appropriate distancing among its members.

Obviously seating is very limited; call number next to our logo (above, right) to make a reservation!

 

Ordering Wine Online

We have been enjoying filling your phone and email wine orders since the Shutdown began in March, and are planning to continue that practice until we can reopen safely. For the many of us of a Certain Age, that probably won’t happen until there is an effective vaccine.

You can order wine for pickup here at the wine shop or at Friday Bread Pickup at the ferry parking lot.  Just click on the “Order Wine” heading at the top of this page for a partial list of our current offerings.

When you have made selections, you can submit an order as follows:

It’s that Simple!

 

 

Art Will Save You

Last fall,when the world seemed normal and maybe even a little hopeful, our artist for Studio Tour was Kim Obbink, with her beautiful water colors of plants and sea creatures. A few weeks later when she took down the show, she gave us a handful of  cards that just said “ART WILL SAVE YOU,” without saying much about them. We have had some in the wine shop and one on our refrigerator in the house since then. They seemed a little mysterious, but having spent twenty years or so as a potter, it had some resonance. You can find out more at the website of the same name.

When I noticed one of the cards this week in the wine shop, it reminded me of how much I enjoyed watching the conversation between Governor Inslee and Paul Simon on Zoom last week. The card reminded me of how insightful I found Paul Simon’s ability to tie art and music to the deeper truths that keep us sane in difficult times. He spoke of how unifying it has been for him to play music with people of widely varying cultural backgrounds from all over the world.

Art and music seem to be some kind of common denominator that all people share, a language of feeling that can express realities and common human experiences that cannot really be expressed in any verbal language. When we paint, we only paint. When we sing, we only sing. No language to trap the mind. It brings a certain freedom that is its own kind of salvation. Take time to make, write, build, paint, craft, sing, sew, doodle, or play something, however simple. It’s a crazy time, and Art may be the mercy that will keep you centered.

 

Mar a Lago Update: 108 Days Till Next Election

Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock. The referee waves his (or her) arm…the clock is ticking. And it sounds Ominous.

We now approach a National election that could either restore or extinguish our National commitment to the values of Liberty and Justice for All that we Old-timers were nurtured in and willingly committed ourselves to as children in the Fifties. Today’s news included discussion of how the Republican Party has increasingly morphed toward pandering entirely to the Tweetster’s simplistic Populist Messaging.

We saw in the words and behaviors of Republican members of Congress during the Impeachment hearings last Fall a preference for mock outrage over Reason. All of their little speeches were clones of each other, aimed mockingly, angrily, and emptily against the truths and values we were trained to hold dear.

Over the last few months we have seen a continuing practice among Republican Senators, Representatives, and Governors to tell outright lies in support of their Party’s President with full knowledge that he has, in the most profound sense Star Trek’s Lt. Worf could imply, “They have NO Honor!”

At present there is considerable speculation as to whom Joe Biden will select as his running mate. Over the past couple of weeks we have seen several interviews with former UN Ambassador and National Security Advisor Susan Rice, very much formatted as public vetting for the job. With all of the Dark Forces that seem to be gathering before us, not unlike something from Tolkien, she has presented herself as intelligent, poised, experienced, and competent, and we are happy to provide her with the full endorsement of our tiny wine shop on our tiny island our here in Northern Ecotopia!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wine Tasting
Comments Off on lummi island wine tasting jul 10 ’20

lummi island wine tasting jul 10 ’20

Posted at July 9, 2020

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Phase II Wine Ops

For the past couple of months we have been exploring whether we could move some semblance of our usual weekly wine tastings to the ferry overflow parking lot for a couple of hours on Friday afternoons. Since Janice had already established the venue for weekly Bread Pickup and Happy Hour, it seemed worth a try. But after some reflection on how that has gone, we have decided NOT to continue the practice. Instead, we will drop down to pick up our bread, put out our chairs, and join you to  schmooze, share a little wine, and visit in the relative safety of the spacious outdoor setting.

Over the next week or so we will be setting up the wine shop entrance area to accommodate half-hour Saturday afternoon outdoor wine tasting appointments for groups of up to three people at a time. There will be the usual tasting fee of $5 for members, $10 for non-members. Social distancing is required, and masks are encouraged. More on this next week!

 

Ordering Wine

While the Shutdown continues, we hope you will all continue to think of us for your wine shopping while Covid keeps our shop closed. You can phone or email wine orders for pickup here at the wine shop or delivery at Friday Bread Pickup. Just click on the “Order Wine” heading at the top of this page for a partial list of our current offerings.

When you have made selections, you can submit an order as follows:

It’s that Simple! Operators are Standing By!

 

 

 

Jay Inslee, Paul Simon, and E. O. Wilson

We took time to watch a special Zoom event on Monday evening featuring our Governor Jay Inslee and music icon Paul Simon, who sang several of his iconic songs (American Tune, Homeward Bound). Mostly the hour-long session was a conversation between them about climate change, politics, and art.

Simon has been an active advocate for global cooperation to save our Planet from the mass extinctions that climate change is already causing, and which will get worse at an increasing rate if we humans do not immediately start rolling back carbon emissions. He is a strong advocate and supporter of the ideas of biologist E. O. Wilson (see photo, left), including his Half-Earth proposal: “By setting aside half the planet in reserve, we can save the living part of the environment and achieve the stabilization required for our own survival.” Read more

Their conversation was notably positive and hopeful, despite the array of Deep Holes we humans seem to have put ourselves into, discussing the roles of artists in inspiring us to our better selves, and the array of man-made challenges threatening the very existence of Life on Earth. The great Takeaway from their mutual positivity and determination was a feeling like Obama’s inspiring “Yes, we can” speech. We don’t know what is going to happen in the future. There are a lot of Threats to everything we hold dear, and solid ground is hard to find these days. We have some tough choices ahead.

 

Mar a Lago Update: Shifting Gears

I began this part of the weekly blog in February 2017 as a small but ongoing commitment to Resist accepting that a psychopathic narcissist had been the winner of a fair election. I still don’t believe it, just as I don’t believe Dubya was actually “elected” in either 2000 or 2004. And I believe that Obama only won in 2008 because more people turned out to vote for him than the Republican gerrymandered, voting machine-rigged 4% advantage that they had built into the system over many years.

As part of those concerns, in about 2002 I discovered an organization called verifiedvoting.org, dedicated to making every vote verifiable everywhere in the country. They discovered major vulnerabilities in voting machines, conflicts of interest with politicians involved with particular voting machine manufacturers, and many more. Over all these years the organization has sought one universal metric for all voting systems: that every ballot cast should have a verifiable paper trail to assure that every individual vote actually reflects the intention of the person authorized to cast it.

In fact, it isn’t all that difficult to design such a voting system. The one we use right here in Washington does a pretty good job of providing a paper audit trail for each vote cast. But lots of states (especially Red ones) use machines that provide no such trail, and which are easily hacked or falsified by either outsiders or insiders. In addition, of course we know that it is common practice in many Red states to make voting either impossible or very difficult in Democratic districts by reducing both the overall numbers and the hours of operation of polling places to cause long waiting lines in Democratic districts and the opposite in Republican ones. In addition it has become common practice in many Red States to remove vast numbers of legal Democratic voters from the rolls.

As we go to press here on July 9, we are now fewer than four months away from the next National election. The coronavirus has placed a major Damper on likely voter turnout at the polls and increased likely demand for absentee ballots, which, like our ordinary ballots in Washington, are sent out and returned by mail. However, Republicans around the nation are lining up against absentee ballots, claiming they are unreliable and subject to falsification and forgery.

In fact, it is exactly the opposite: universal use of mail-in ballots would make voting both more inclusive and more accurate. So let’s all pay attention to the discussion over the next few months about how individual states handle their voting. It will say a lot about institutional Integrity.

 

 

Wine Tasting
Comments Off on lummi island wine tasting july 3 ’20

lummi island wine tasting july 3 ’20

Posted at July 2, 2020

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Wine Tasting Reset Time

For the past couple of months we have been trying out piggy-backing a minimal wine tasting on Janice’s Friday bread pickup and DIY Happy Hour at the ferry parking lot each week. As you know, she is taking this weekend off, so we remind you there is no bread pickup this weekend. Look for next week’s menu email sometime Sunday.

After experimenting for a couple of months now with with the Friday Tailgate tasting, we have decided to discontinue the practice. That will free us to just drop by and visit along with everyone else on Fridays…and to focus on promoting tastings by appointment. We will have more on that next week.

In the meantime, have a relaxing, sunny, and Happy Fourth of July (with caveats as noted below…!)

 

Annual Fourth of July Alert

Every Fourth of July we like to remind you all to “Watch out for Falling Elephants!” That’s because of an old limerick (even back then!) that was popular in my neighborhood in Maine when I was a kid in the Fifties. It goes like this:

“I asked my mother for fifty cents
To see the elephant jump the fence;
He jumped so high he touched the sky, and
Didn’t come down till the Fourth of July.”

So, a word to the wise for this Saturday: Take nothing for Granted…Keep a Sharp Eye For Falling Elephants!

 

 

Mar a Lago Update: How’s That MAGA Thing Goin’, Mate?

Here it is now July, 2020, and a Long, Long time has passed since the most recent Republican Coup in 2016. As Jesus said in Superstar, “I’ve tried for Three years, Seems like Ninety..!” America’s last three years have been Exhausting and Crazy-Making. We occasionally think back to the Republican Candidates’ Debates in 2015 and just scratch our heads. How could this have happened?

It’s not that any of the other candidates would have been more worthy than the Tweetster in any measurable way. It’s more that their particular forms of insanity were Familiar. We didn’t Like them, and had little respect for them, but weren’t Afraid of them.  On the other hand, the Tweetster’s whole MO is his penchant for the Outrageous, his complete willingness to pull the chain that flushes Everyone and Everything down the toilet. As if the only Element of his actions that is relevant is that they make the Front Page, not that they accomplish or contribute anything of lasting benefit.

Supposedly the Tweetster’s strong suit is the Economy. But a recent article in Independentaustralia.net presents a damning Statistical assessment of the Tweetster’s economic failures.

First, although the economy was supposedly Booming, government revenue went from 85% of gdp in 2016 to 75% in 2019, the worst budgetary outcome of all 36 wealthy members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Second, his penchant for Trade Wars (you know, the Art of the Deal guy)  led him to start trade wars with numerous trading partners in 2018, causing increasing trade deficits. Exports have tumbled, trade deficits have deepened severely, production has declined, farms and businesses have gone bankrupt, and hundreds of thousands of workers have lost their jobs.

Third, The rationale for Trump’s costly 2018-19 trade wars was that our deficits were too deep, averaging $39.8 billion over the last ten months of 2016. The trend continued  for two more years, with exports falling and imports rising, costing tens of billions in lost treasure, thousands of farmer suicides, and trade deficits approaching $50 billion. At the same time, since the 2018 tariffs, counterbalancing production and exports have continued to fall.

Fourth, the Tweetster has claimed since taking office in 2017 that he deserved credit for jobs expansion that was more correctly attributed to the policies of the Obama Administration: “It took gross mismanagement of the Coronavirus pandemic to reverse the positive trend in American jobs which started back in 2010, although the rate of decline eased somewhat in 2018 and 2019 as exports and economic growth faltered.”

Bottom line: There is no Art of the Deal. There is no Business Acumen. There is no Art and No Deal, no Leadership, no Understanding, no Heart, no Mind, no Caring, no Responsibility. And most disturbing of all, our so-called President has not even a Touch of Class.

 

New Wine Tasting Protocol

Pretty simple: call or email us to make a 30-minute appointment for a tasting on our deck. We will pour five wines (as usual over these many years– members $5, non-members $10). More details next week.

Happy Fourth of July!

 

 

Wine Tasting
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