lummi island wine tasting oct 4 ‘19
Closed this weekend!
Special note: We are away for a few days, had intended to be back for wine shop hours Friday and Saturday.
However, as the trip has unfolded it has become clear that we Will Not be back in time to open the wine shop either day.
We regret any inconvenience, and look forward to seeing you Oct 11, when our Bread Baker will also be back!
Rich & Pat
lummi island wine tasting sept 27 ’19
click on photos for larger images
Friday Breads
Note: Our baker is away for three weeks in the northern Baltics in search of new breads and pastries. So…next Bread Friday won’t be until (gulp!) October 11th!
Don’t worry, though, the shop will be open on this Friday and Saturday as usual, so come by and celebrate the end of this year’s Ferry Drydock!
( note: Breads must be pre-ordered by Wednesday for pickup here at the wine shop at our Friday wine tasting, 4-6pm. Planning a visit to the Island? Email us to get on the mailing list!)
Making Jet Fuel from Air
Any general, off-hand thinking about the effects of jet travel on climate make us think about the impossibility of flying without paying a big price in environmental damage. Any of today’s jet airliners uses thousands of pounds of fossil fuels per hour to get aloft and fly us thousands of miles. At any given moment over a million people are airborne across the world. And it is hard to imagine how to lower the carbon footprint for jet travel.
Recent research (watch video) has been exploring methods for extracting CO2 from the atmosphere and using it to make jet fuel (which, btw, is more like kerosene than like gasoline). The various experimental systems use solar energy and high temperatures to convert carbon dioxide and water into hydrogen and carbon monoxide, also known as synthesis gas (syngas). It sounds a lot like reverse breathing; instead of inhaling oxygen and breathing out carbon dioxide, it breathes in CO2 and exhales syngas which can be used for anything, especially aviation fuel. (watch another video)
Lots of big investors (like Bill Gates) have put $$ into researching this idea, and several pilot projects are underway. This is an encouraging sign that economic incentives for innovation in climate stabilization are getting the attention of investors and will soon bear fruit!
Mar a Lago Update: Bribery Vs. Extortion
Bribery is about exchanging something of value to influence the actions of an individual holding a public office or legal duty. There are at least two parties involved; one which wants the favor, and one with the means to provide it. Both solicitation and acceptance constitute crimes regardless of whether the solicitation results in the receipt of a valuable gift.
Similarly, extortion is the gaining of property or money by threatening any kind of force, violence, property damage, or other harm if a particular action is not carried out. Extortion is a felony in every state.
In the case of the Tweetster’s now World-Famous telephone conversation with the new President of Ukraine, until recently (no one could have made this up) a well-known comedian in Ukraine, it is perhaps harder to figure out whether the obvious Crimes implied in the conversation would better be called Bribery or Extortion. What IS clear is that whatever you call it, it totally qualifies as “bribery” as used in the Constitution of the United States to define an Impeachable Offense.
Since the news broke (was it only Yesterday…?) about the Tweetster’s phone conversation with Volodymyr Zelensky, the new Ukrainian President (maybe he has a Thing for anyone named Vladimir…?), the airwaves have been Overloaded with endless Right and Left Wing Punditry about the decision of the House of Representatives to upgrade their Investigation a notch closer to an actual Impeachment resolution.
Everything that is going on in the media right now about these latest developments is reminiscent of the testimony of the Tweetster’s long-time personal lawyer Michael Cohen’s warnings: “Mr.Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress. That’s not how he operates,” Cohen said in his opening statement. “He doesn’t give you questions, he doesn’t give you orders — he speaks in a code. And I understand the code because I’ve been around him for a decade.”
As Everybody Knows, the point of this kind of code among Crime Bosses is to avoid leaving explicit evidence lying about; in other words, maintaining what everyone in Politics calls, “Plausible Deniability.” The unsurprising Takeaway from these events is that as a group, Republicans have no underlying Ethic. On the contrary, they will do anything, say anything, and dissemble about their fluidity on any particular value except Holding Power.
Dog help us…!
Washington Post Tweetster Lie Count to date: 12,000 as of 6/10/19
This weekend’s wine tasting
Villa Sparina Gavi di Gavi ’13 Italy $17
Bright golden color. Scent of overripe pears, spices, citrus fruit and aromatic herbs; Well balanced notes of honey and butter; full-bodied and savory. And a wine bottle worth saving!
La Croix Belle Caringole Rosé ’17 France $12
Syrah-Grenache blend; intense nose of rose petals and garrigue; palate of cherries and raspberries with notes of dried rosemary and thyme and a citrus accent on the crisp finish.
Carmen Carmenere ’17 Chile $16
Aromas of fresh berries, baking spices and chocolate get this wine going; full bodied yet balanced, with toasty black fruit flavors with grip and intensity; full bodied yet balanced, with blackberry, herbal plum and spices.
Capcanes Mas Donis Old Vines ‘15 Spain $12
Velvety mouthfeel and texture; wild red and black berry flavors, with cherry, spices and herbs; medium to full-bodied with soft and velvet tannins and nicely refreshing finish.
Juggernaut Hillside Cabernet ’16 California $19
Huge, rich, and opulent, with complex flavors of chocolate, coffee, blackberries, cassis, mint, and velvety tannins. New French oak adds notes of vanilla and toast; concentrated, rich, and smooth on the palate.
lummi island wine tasting sept 20 ’19
click on photos for larger images
Friday Breads
Note: Our baker is away for three weeks in the northern Baltics in search of new breads and pastries. So…next Bread Friday won’t be until (gulp!) October 11th!
Don’t worry, though, the shop will be open on Friday and Saturday as usual, so come by and celebrate the last quiet weekend of this year’s ferry Drydock!
( note: Breads must be pre-ordered by Wednesday for pickup here at the wine shop at our Friday wine tasting, 4-6pm. Planning a visit to the Island? Email us to get on the mailing list!)
Talk Like a Pirate Day
Arrrrr, lads ‘n’ lassies, we be a wee bit late in gettin’ the word out to ye this year, ‘n’ a shame it is, too, as this note in a bottle’ll be washin’ up on yer shore too late fer ye to celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day, which be Today as We put Quill to paper for this very missive. Arrrr!
The idea started in 1995 with a couple of buddies kidding around. Since then, with the help of humorist Dave Barry, it has evolved into an international Phenomenon, at least among people who like to throw around a bunch of old movie Pirate Jargon, like Avast there matey! or I’ll cut yer gizzard out! or when in doubt, the All Purpose exclamation, usually said with a bit of a sneer Arrrrr! (click on image for further instruction!)
Another Autumnal Equinox
The Autumn Equinox falls each year within about a three-day period between September 22 and 24. The term “equinox” connotes a day with an equal number of hours of day and night, which happens twice each year due to the tilting of the earth’s axis some 23.4° from the plane of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun, the Ecliptic.
Though we think of the Equinox as a whole day, it actually occurs at a particular moment: the exact time when the Sun is directly above the Equator. That is, it occurs when an observer on the Equator can look straight up (90° ) at the Sun. Imagine a line of people standing all along the Equator. As the Earth approaches the moment of Equinox, each person in turn would see it getting closer and closer to 90° overhead until for some particular person it will be exactly Overhead, after which the angle for each subsequent person will keep decreasing until the next Solstice. This year the Equinox occurs here shortly after midnight, which means that the person right under it at the exact time of the Equinox would be about 100 miles east of the Seychelles, along the Equator in the Indian Ocean.
By the way, it is believed that the Earth’s axis was originally much more closely aligned with the plane of the ecliptic. But it was knocked off its axis billions of years ago by a cataclysmic collision with another object exploded a huge piece of the Earth into orbit to form the Moon! Without that collision, without the tipping of the axis to cause seasons, and without the moon to make tides, maybe Life would never have evolved here. No matter the viewing angle, our very existence seems Unlikely. Yet here we are for a few brief moments…!
Mar a Lago Update: Hope and Despair
On the positive side, the past couple of weeks have brought to our collective attention 16 year old Greta Thunberg of Sweden, an unlikely heroine, yet a persuasive spokesperson for Global Action to stop Climate Change. A serious, self-proclaimed autistic on a global mission, she is happy that people are listening to her message. But she has also said, “It’s sometimes annoying when people say, ‘Oh you children, you young people are the hope. You will save the world…’ I think it would be helpful if they would help us just a little bit.”
She recently visited the US, traveling here by solar powered sailboat (I am not making this up!) and having TV face time with newscasters, pundits, talk show hosts, Congress, and former President Obama.
On the less positive side, we recently read a disturbing editorial by well-known conservative columnist David Brooks that has taken our breath away with its pull-no-punches attack on Democratic Progressives in general and on Elizabeth Warren in particular. On the one hand his fictional narrative has her winning the nomination and election in 2020 and Democrats gaining control of both Houses of Congress, with subsequent broad decline in Republican support. But Brooks can’t seem to stop himself from imagining that a Warren White House would be staffed with, in his words “incompetent idealogues” doomed to fail because, “Fired by their sense of moral superiority, they were good at condemnation, not coalition-building.”
I confess I have always found Brooks’ opinions hard to grasp. On the one hand he seems to have a balanced sensibility that has been sorely strained by all things Tweetster. On the other hand, he Is a card-carrying Conservative, but of an uncertain caste. Possibly, as above, he is “Fired by a sense of moral superiority…good at condemnation, not coalition-building.” But I am at a loss as to why he thinks Elizabeth Warren is an “incompetent idealogue” because she espouses values we old folks grew up with in Eisenhower’s fifties.
Back to the positive side, lots of young people are postponing having children because of their uncertainty about the world those children will live in, and even today as you read this youth movements around the world are demonstrating Global Unity against Climate Change. It feels like the Tide may be starting to Turn…
Washington Post Tweetster Lie Count to date: 12,000 as of 6/10/19
This weekend’s wine tasting
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 de Caraguilhes Rosé ’18 France $14
Fresh pink, clear and bright; intense and appealing aromas of gooseberry and cherry with clean mineral notes; round and well-balanced, rounded and elegant, a great pleasure to drink.
Montes Cabernet Sauvignon ’15 Chile $11
Earthy aromas that include rubber and gamy berry fruits lead to a wide palate. Warm, candied plum and cassis flavors are chocolaty and finish with a swipe of oak and tobacco.
Capcanes Mas Donis Old Vines ‘15 Spain $12
Velvety mouthfeel and texture; wild red and black berry flavors, with cherry, spices and herbs; medium to full-bodied with soft and velvet tannins and nicely refreshing finish.
Betz Besoleil ’14 Washington $45
Grenache-dominant Rhone blend; classic notes of cherries, herbes de Provence, red plums and pepper in a fine, elegant, medium to full-bodied style.
lummi island wine tasting sept 13 ’19
click on photos for larger images
Friday Breads
Note: This week will be the last Bread Friday until (gulp!) October 11th! Our baker will be away in the northern Baltics exploring bakeries and farms in search of new breads and pastries.
This week’s breads:
Flax seed currant Ciabatta – Made with a poolish that ferments some of the flour and water overnight before being mixed with the final ingredients which includes a nice mix of bread flour and fresh milled whole wheat and rye flours. Loaded up with flax seeds and dried currants for a delicious bread. This bread is mixed with a lot of water that makes for a very slack dough so it can’t be weighed out and shaped like other bread, it is just cut into pieces. A really flavorful artisan loaf – $5/piece
Black Pepper Walnut- made with a nice mix of 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. Would go well with all sorts of meats and cheese – $5/loaf
Kouign Aman- Made with the same traditional laminated french pastry used for croissants. Has both a little levain for the sourdough flavor as well as some pre-fermented dough to help build strength. When rolling out however, instead of using flour to prevent sticking, sugar is used. The dough is cut into squares and baked in cupcake tins where all that sugar and butter caramelizes and makes for delicious, crunchy, delightful pastry. 2/$5
( Breads must be pre-ordered by Wednesday for pickup here at the wine shop at our Friday wine tasting, 4-6pm. Planning a visit to the Island? Email us to get on the mailing list!)
Château de Caraguilhes
Château de Caraguilhes is an organic winery in the Corbières wine region, where winemaking dates back some 2000 years when Greek traders introduced wine grapes to the region. The tradition continued for centuries in the Middle Ages under the stewardship of Cistercian monks at several abbeys in the region, including Abbaye de Fontfroide a few miles to the east. Caraguiles was one of their original estates.
In 1958, Algerian vintner and organic pioneer Lionel Faivre took over the vineyards. Over the next twenty years he became the first owner in the region to farm fully organically. In 2005, Pierre Gabison acquired the estate and continued to make the effort to produce uncompromising organic wines. The vineyard is plowed eight times annually, with manual weeding between vines. Located in the dry scrubland of northern Corbieres (reminiscent of eastern Washington), the vines are part of an arid ecosystem of grapevines where winds are a constant some 300 days a year.
Soil is largely of clay-limestone on rocky hillsides. Grape varietals include grenache, syrah, and carignan. Carignan from this region tends to be from old vines that bring deep color and aromas and flavors of garrigue with its beguiling notes of the sage, thyme, and oregano that grow amid the vines. This wine makes a great pairing with roast pork with prunes, grilled Toulouse sausage, cold meats, roast beef, grilled lamb… or maybe even just on its own!
We’re All Dinosaurs Now
We watched a NOVA piece the other night ( Day the Dinosaurs Died) about the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs and 70% of species in existence in one spectacular event some 66 million years ago. If the event had not happened, WE would probably not have happened. The episode is called Day the Dinosaurs Died, and it chronicles a recent study based on core samples from the point in Yucatan where the asteroid crashed into the Earth.
The first thing you need to imagine is this asteroid not as a little chunk of rock, but as a Mountain-sized chunk some eight miles in diameter. The size of, say, Mt. Rainier. And imagine it striking the Yucatan coast at about a 30-degree angle at a speed of about 40,000 miles an hour. Calculations suggest it would have struck with the intensity of 100 million nuclear warheads.
The second thing is to take a moment to think about the Unlikeliness (we hope) of such an event. The same asteroid could have struck only a few places on Earth with such catastrophic results. Yes, it would have been Bad, Very Bad anyplace, but Life could have continued for many species that did not make it.
The third thing to ponder is what one movie some years ago called the Unbearable Lightness of Being: the remarkable fact that without this One Unlikely Event many species including us would never have existed. Not you, not me, none of it.
Now of course the World faces an equally Terrifying Crisis with the Climate Disruption We ourselves have set into motion. There is Much to Ponder…and much to be done.
Mar a Lago Update: Down to Business
Sometime in the 80’s I wrote a letter to the local newspaper editor about the Danger of Business Schools. As I recall, I observed that there was a new type of “school” that was becoming very popular. All the young people wanted to go to one. It was a place where uniforms were Required: a coat and tie. The tie in particular was Very Important.
First, it put a Noose around your neck to remind you Never to tell the Truth. Second, it covered your Heart, so you were free to ignore your True Feelings. And Third, it covered your Belly Button, so you could completely forget that you are an actual Human Being. The letter did get published, and I did get a little Flak for it. But these days I believe it more than ever. Over the past fifty years Business Schools have Preached the Mantra of Appropriation, i.e., the Profit in appropriating things that had always been free and making them Proprietary.
For example, twenty years ago or so, you could turn on your TV and pick up signals (I am not making this up!) for Free. You could watch News, Sports, any network programming at all just by turning on your TV and dialing the channel. That all changed when TV went digital in the aughts, and the big media companies appropriated what had previously been your right to the Free Broadcast of publicly licensed television; now they own that right and we have to pay them for it. WTF?
Our household does pay for internet cable but not TV. Because of that, until tonight we have never been able to watch any of the Presidential Candidates’ Debates in the last few election cycles. Think about that: a “public debate” that excludes everyone who hasn’t paid a commercial enterprise for the privilege. In today’s world the Providers separate TV cable from Internet cable; the Cable Providers have appropriated your right to watch TV on public airways, and the Internet Providers have appropriated the right to go online at all. On the plus side, we did find a way to stream tonight’s Debate online, which only seems, you know, Appropriate for Public Business.
Similarly, here it is Football Season again, and we find ourselves searching for ways to stream the Seahawks online without a Cable Subscription. Talk about knocking your head against a Corporate Wall! While there are various services available, they all have loopholes. You can pay the NFL $100 to be allowed to watch games but only after they are over; you can pay several other providers to be able to watch some of the games but not all; or you can pay the NFL the big bucks for Live streaming of all the games. Or, you know, when you are worn down, you can just give up and subscribe to the cable.
Yup, it all started with the Fookin Business Schools, ‘n’ it’s been goin’ Downhill ever since. Bloody Shame. Let’s go taste some wine!
Washington Post Tweetster Lie Count to date: 12,000 as of 6/10/19
This weekend’s wine tasting
Henry Natter Sancerre ’17 France $28
Mineral, slightly acidic, aromas of pineapple, lime and eucalyptus, a perfect match for the oyster bar; great depth of fruit and plenty of classic flinty character
Bieler Rosé ’17 France $17
Grenache-Syrah blend; soft and bright, with plenty of red-berry and currant flavors. Its fruitiness and balanced acidity make for an immediately attractive, easy wine.
Chateau de Caraguilhes Corbieres Rouge ’15 France $14
45% Syrah, 30% Grenache, 25% Carignan;concentrated aromas of black fruits and tapenade, with undertones of mint and pepper; silky on the palate with notes of pepper, blackberry and black olive; fresh and zesty, a lively, elegant wine.
Anciano 5-Yr Tempranillo Riserva ’12 Spain $11
Aromas of damp earth, mocha, tobacco, and black cherry. On the palate it is sweetly fruited, easy-going, and nicely balanced leading to a seamless, fruity finish.
Seghesio Zinfandel Angela’s Garden ’17 California $19
Aromas of wild blueberry, briary raspberry patch and baking spice give way to a palate of juicy, ripe blackberry and black plum. Soft tannins, a rich mouthfeel and focused acidity lead to a long finish.
2072 Granger Way