lummi island wine tasting july 26 ’19
Friday Breads
Pain Meunier – aka “miller’s bread” and was developed to honor the miller who mills the wheat. It is one of my favorite breads and contains all portions of the wheat berry: flour, fresh milled whole wheat, cracked wheat and wheat germ. Always a favorite and a great all around bread. It makes the best toast! – $5/loaf
Sonnenblumenbrot – otherwise known as Sunflower Seed Bread; made with an overnight pre-ferment before mixing in more bread flour and freshly milled rye, then loaded up with toasted sunflower seeds and some barley malt syrup for sweetness. This is a typical German seed bread- $5/loaf
Pain aux Raisin – made with the same laminated dough as croissants (!) The dough is rolled out, spread with pastry cream and sprinkled with a mix of golden raisins and dried cranberries that have been soaked in sugar syrup. Rolled up and sliced before baking. These are my favorites! – 2/$5
Pic St. Loup, cont’d
Last month we poured the Chateau Lancyre Pic St. Loup Rosé. It hit the spot for most of you, including even Riley (aka “he who only drinks Rosé..”). As we have mentioned from time to time, we maintain a certain fascination with the wines from this little region a short distance north from the French Mediterranean city of Montpellier. Visible in the photo, the “Pic” is a 640-meter “Tooth” of Rock that dominates the view for miles in every direction.
The wines from this place, which must be predominantly syrah, grenache, and mourvedre (as in nearby Southern Rhone) have a certain gravitas. The vines must be at least six years old (not three) before being harvested for making red wine; and because the vineyards are scattered among rugged hills sloping up from the Mediterranean, the climate tends to be cooler and wetter than elsewhere in Languedoc, with numerous microclimates that favor particular varietals.
Typically, Pic St. Loup reds show deep color, good depth of flavor, and bold, spicy, meaty, and earthy complexity, and display more elegance and refinement than wines from the hotter Languedoc plains to the south. This week we are pouring the Chateau la Roque Pic-St. Loup Rouge, a blend of (of course!) syrah, grenache, and mourvedre…easy to enjoy!
Mar a Lago Update: Mueller has spoken…What Now??
As we all know, the big news this week has been the all day testimony of Special Counsel Robert Mueller before the House Judiciary Committee and the House Intelligence Committee. Politicians, pundits, and the rest of us who were hoping he would lead us by the hand through the 400+ page report on his team’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible Obstruction of Justice charges against the Tweetster and other White House personnel were disappointed. Various spokespeople on both sides have claimed vindication, and few minds seem to have been changed by Mueller’s words.
In a persuasive analysis of Mueller’s testimony, former prosecutor and Politico Columnist Renato Mariotti details Mueller’s careful walking of the Tightrope his position required him to maintain: “the verdict of history depends most of all on Mueller’s being seen as nonpartisan, measured, and above the fray—an operator whose work is unimpeachable and can be relied on as a bulletproof statement of fact.”
This argument goes a long way toward putting Mueller’s behavior in context. Always careful not to advocate any conclusion or recommendation, but merely to deliver on his prosecutorial duty to present just the Facts, he deliberately and painstakingly has left it to others to decide what to do with them. He meets all of the very demanding qualifications of a Fair Witness, a concept developed by sci-fi author Robert Heinlein in his classic novel Stranger in a Strange Land, first published in 1961. The Fair Witness is an individual with an eidetic memory who has been trained to observe events and report exactly what is seen or heard making no extrapolations, assumptions or conclusions. An illustration of a Fair Witness testimony when asked, say, the color of a particular house, would be something like, “It was white on the side I saw.”
The one name that popped up several times in the testimony was Don McGahn, former White House Counsel, who according to many reports was prepared to resign rather than comply with the Tweetster’s requests to fire Mueller. So far his testimony has been blocked by the White House, and the case might have to be resolved in court. From what we know about McGahn, he is a right-wing operative responsible for ushering through Congress the nominations of scores of ultra-conservative federal judges. On the other hand his willingness to resign rather than lie suggest the possibility that he would tell the truth to Congress if forced to appear (yes, yes, we know, that is definitely an uncharacteristic Republikan trait) rather than risk being caught in a lie. For the time being, we should keep pressure on Congress to bring McGahn to appear before Congress.
Washington Post Tweetster Lie Count to date: 10,000 as of 5/1/19
This week’s wine tasting
Crios de Susana Balbo Torrontes ’17 Argentina 14
Highly perfumed aromas of lemon drop, grapefruit, white flowers, peppermint and white pepper. Supple, pliant and easygoing, with citrus, herbal and floral flavors joined by a hint of licorice.
Adorada “Eau de California” Rosé ’17 California $19
Brilliant coral color with aromas of strawberries and red grapefruit, rose petal, and jasmine; palate of strawberry, orange zest and a touch of white pepper spice and bright acidity to balance the fruity creaminess.
Linen Red ’15 Washington $11
Syrah-cab blend. Opens with charcoal, blackberry and spice on the nose, with flavors of plum, cassis, and cedar in the
turning to blackberry and peppery black fruits on the finish.
Chateau la Roque Pic-St. Loup Rouge ’16 France $16
A lithe and expressive red, with fine balance and well-structured flavors of dried cherry, plum and boysenberry, featuring hints of tarragon and cream on the finish. Grenache, Syrah and Mourvèdre.
Pomum Red ’15 Washington $19
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.
lummi island wine tasting july 19-20 ’19
Friday Breads
Kamut Levain – Kamut, aka khorasan wheat, is an ancient grain with more protein than conventional wheat. The bread is made with a levain that is fermented overnight before being mixed with with bread flour and fresh milled whole kamut flour. It has a nutty, rich flavor and makes a golden color loaf. A great all aroundbread – $5/loaf
Barley/Rye w/ Pumpkin Seeds – Also made with a levain starter mixed with bread flour and fresh milled rye, barley, and whole wheat flours. h buttermilk makes for a tender crumb, honey for sweetness and pumpkin seeds for flavor and texture. A really flavorful artisan loaf – $5/loaf
Chocolate Babka Rolls – A sweet pastry dough full of eggs, butter and sugar, rolled and spread with a chocolate filling, rolled up and cut into individual rolls and brushed with sugar syrup after baking. – 2/$5
Bayview
Yesterday we took our trailer to our favorite nearby State Park, Bayview on Padilla Bay, and rendezvoused with Peter and Sandy in their new Airstream. It has been sometimes rainy, sometimes sunny, and overall a pleasant getaway.
In keeping with our collective wine shop philosophy, we have shared good food, good wine, and good conversation. And, of course, good dogs! And it is late, so a short post tonight…
Hope to see you all this weekend!
Mar a Lago Update: Two Shots at Survival
As suggested last week, those of us who deeply and devoutly want to see the Tweetster’s Tiny Hands wrested from The Controls of Power have our work cut out for us.
The First Challenge is to Defeat him in the 2020 election, and that battle has already begun in earnest. Two dozen candidates are vying to be the Democratic candidate to oppose him. On the positive side, the campaign offers an a 16-month chorus of anti- Tweetster voices, and a solid majority of potential voters wants him gone.
On the down side, he has demonstrated an uncanny ability to frame his constant Lies so that every entranced disciple hears only what s/he wants to hear while disregarding everything else, even things they would not tolerate in any other politician. As psychiatrist and cult brainwashing expert Robert Lifton has noted, charismatic leaders have extraordinary powers over their followers’ wills.
The Presidential campaign for the 2020 election is now well underway. We have seen the Democratic Candidates debate, and any of them would be a major improvement over the Tweetster. And when we say “Major Improvement,” we mean first and foremost slowing, stopping, and reversing the political, economic, social, and environmental Disaster that threatens the very existence of Life on our dear Planet Earth through Climate Change.
Meanwhile every Republikan* Party member asserts, with the Amused Hubris that only extended periods of having one’s head Completely Up One’s Ass can possibly explain, that Climate Change is not happening, and even if it is it has nothing to do with human activity.
(* our answer to the Tweetster’s “Democrat Party”)
The Second Challenge for 2020 is to wrest control of the Senate, where nothing good has been permitted to escape from Dark Lord McConnell’s Cold Dissembling Hands for almost a decade. There are actually two ways to achieve this. One is by getting him defeated in his Senate Reelection campaign. Paradoxically, despite his decades in office, he remains extremely unpopular even to his core constituency. There is a challenger, but defeating him is at best a Long Shot.
The second is by turning four Senate Seats (should The Dark Side retain the White House), or turning three Senate Seats and also the Presidency. Since R’s hold a 53-47 advantage in the Senate, a shift of three seats makes it a 50-50 split with any tie-breaking vote cast by the sitting Vice President who also serves as the tie-breaking vote in Senate proceedings. So to gain control of the Senate— perhaps an even more important goal than the Oval Office— Dems must win Either Three Senate seats and the Presidency, OR Four Senate Seats outright. While they are both Difficult, the same strategies apply to accomplishing either, and we should commit ourselves to going All Out for both.
Washington Post Tweetster Lie Count to date: 10,000 as of 5/1/19
This week’s wine tasting
Big Salt ’18 Oregon $15
Shows grit and chalky saltiness, with floral, honeysuckle and tropical fruit notes and pebbly minerality. An aromatic but not sweet, supremely satisfying sipper; an excellent food wine.
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.
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.
Kiona Cuvée Rouge ’17 Washington $16
83% cab, 8% syrah, 6% merlot, 3% sangio blend from many Kiona vineyards for an approachable, balanced, textured, and crowd-pleasing blend.
Flaneur Pinot Noir ’17 Oregon $28
Sharply etched berry and cherry fruit flavors, with a hint of brown sugar. Light citrus acidity underlies an astringent finish, which builds interest with hints of cherry tobacco and cola.
lummi island wine tasting july 12-13 ’19
Friday Breads
Whole Wheat Levain – Made with a sourdough starter fermented overnight in the refrigerator. The bread is made with this levain, bread flour, about 25% fresh milled whole wheat, and a bit of fresh milled rye. It has a ‘toothy’ crumb, great texture and flavor and a nice crisp crust. – $5/loaf
Breton – Incorporates the flavors of the French Brittany region. Bread flour and fresh milled buckwheat and rye make for interesting flavor and the salt is sel gris -the grey salt from the region that brings more mineral flavors to this bread. Goes great with meats and cheeses – $5/loaf
Morning Buns – these have been made popular by Tartine Bakery in San Francisco, and this is my interpretation. 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
Henry’s Drive
Every once in a while we get a hankering for for a Big, Fat Australian Shiraz…better known elsewhere as, you know, Syrah. Most of us know shiraz as mass-produced, fruit-forward (even somewhat one-dimensional), and uncomplicated, but for the most part pretty drinkable. And sometimes that One Dimension can be Stupidly Good, in the same way that a big, fat, over-extracted, over-ripe, high alcohol California Zinfandel can be Good. There is so much flavor that every once in a while you get a craving for it, even though you know, and an inner nanny voice reminds you, that at some level it is Wrong to like this kind of wine.
So a few months ago we were browsing a local distributor’s catalog and saw the Henry’s Drive Padthaway Shiraz 2012 listed at a pretty good price (save $9 a bottle if we bought three cases). Never having tasted it, we did not order it. Fast forward to today, and it is mostly gone, but we were able to get the last five bottles, to be delivered Friday shortly before opening. We sheepishly admit this is a typical example of the lengths some of us will travel just to taste a wine we are curious about… our One Weakness. more on Henry’s Drive
We have no idea if we will like it, if it will rise to our Expectations and we will Hunt for More, or if it will go straight into the Spit Bucket. It’s just part of the ongoing Romance with wine. You see a bottle and wonder, Gee, what does That One taste like…? This one won’t arrive until just before we open on Friday afternoon, so our first taste will also be yours. And there will only be five bottles!!
Mar a Lago Update: Four Seats for Survival
The campaigns for the 2020 election are well underway. We have seen the Democratic Presidential Candidates debate, and any one of them would be a major improvement over the Tweetster. And when we say “Major Improvement,” we mean first and foremost slowing, stopping, and reversing the political, economic, social, and environmental Disaster that threatens the very existence of Life on our dear Planet Earth through Climate Change.
Under the auspices of “economic growth,” human ingenuity has developed very sophisticated ways to transform the raw materials of our planet to “better serve” human needs and desires. It took about 200,000 years for the human population to reach 1 billion (in 1800), only 120 years more to reach 2 billion (1927), and 33 more to reach 3 billion. Global population is expected to hit 8 billion by 2024. That means that for us early Baby Boomers the human population has quadrupled during our lifetimes, with devastating consequences.
We are reminded of the first Star Trek movie back in 1980 in which an early human satellite (Voyager) reaches interstellar space centuries later where it is found and Substantially Upgraded by an advanced machine civilization and sent back to Earth to complete its original mission. The Trouble begins (gulp!) when the Highly Evolved satellite (“Vee-ger”) encounters humans and sees them as “Infestations.” Uh-oh!
One inescapable meaning of Climate Change is that there are so many of us, demanding so much Energy in such a short period of time, that Our Very Existence on Planet Earth is, well, Threatening Our Very Existence on Planet Earth. It may already be too late. We all feel the pressure as we read about the hurricanes, the rainfall, the flooding, the lost crops, the fires, the orcas, the polar bears, the rain forests, the pollution. Even the Central American exodus toward the US is largely driven by the desperation of drought and failing crops for people who were already barely at subsistence levels of survival.
If we are to have any hope of survival we must achieve two goals for the coming year: voting both Darth McConnell and the Tweetster out of office. It will not be easy, but it is possible…(to be cont’d)
Washington Post Tweetster Lie Count to date: 10,000 as of 5/1/19
This week’s wine tasting
Maryhill Winemaker’s White ’17 Washington $12
Flavorful blend of pinot gris, chardonnay, semillon and sauvignon blanc; opens with clean, bright aromas of pear and apple with touches of tangerine, butter and lemon oil.
Castel de Maures Rosé ’17 France $16
Syrah-grenache blend; bright vibrant pink; fruit-forward notes of fresh raspberries and summer flowers.
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.
Kiona Cuvée Rouge ’17 Washington $16
83% cab, 8% syrah, 6% merlot, 3% sangio blend from many Kiona vineyards for an approachable, balanced, textured, and crowd-pleasing blend.
Henry’s Drive Padthaway Syrah ’12 Australia $26
Shows meaty olive-infused aromas combined with sweet coconut and vanilla tones, with nice harmony of savory and fruity notes of loganberries and bilberries.
lummi island wine tasting july 5-6 ’19
Friday Breads
Multi Grain Levain – Made with a sourdough culture and using a flavorful mix of
bread flour and fresh milled whole wheat and rye. A nice mixture of flax, sesame, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, and polenta add great flavor and crunch. And a little honey for some sweetness. – $5/loaf
Polenta Levain – Also made with a levain which is mixed with bread flour and polentain the final dough mix. While there is a hint of butter used when making the polenta for a nice rustic loaf with great corn
flavor. – $5/loaf
Chocolate Croissants – a traditional laminated french pastry made with a bit of sourdough flavor and some pre-fermented dough to help strengthen the dough to create the traditional honeycomb interior. Rolled out and shaped with delicious dark chocolate in the center. – 2/$5
Fourth of July
Every Fourth of July we like to remind people to “Watch out for Falling Elephants!” That’s because of a limerick that was popular in our neighborhood in Maine when I was a kid. 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.”
Fortunately it is now late in the evening on the Fourth with No Reports of Elephant Damage! (whew!)
Mar a Lago Update: American Dreams
Here it is another Fourth of July in America. Besides the perennial worry about Falling Elephants , today we enjoyed the company of close neighbors over tasty snacks, decent wine, tasty barbecue, and excellent conversation on issues of the day that grew curiously animated, suggesting an unconscious anxiety about the world we share and the politics that drive it. Interestingly, our little group shared a common political perspective, which is not so much Philosophical as it is Nostalgiac, somewhat reminiscent of Robert Kennedy’s line about “Other people see things as they are and ask Why?…I see things that Never Were and ask “Why Not?”
As we went around the table, each of us dug deeply to try to Name the sources of our Fears. The common element seemed to be that from childhood we had all become attached to idealistic fantasies of the Meaning of America which over recent decades in general and over the last two years in particular have been Wholeheartedly Abandoned by Republicans.
At root is a somewhat arcane economic theory involving the relationship between “property rights” and “amenity rights” proposed by EJ Mishan some decades ago. The idea is that in lots of circumstances the behavior of one individual imposes collateral costs on other individuals, as when someone smokes in a restaurant, plays loud music that bothers neighbors, or dumps radioactive waste into a public waterway.
Mishan’s central point was the ambiguity of rights in modern society. Does a cigarette smoker have the property right to smoke wherever and whenever s/he pleases, or does everyone else have the right to a smoke-free environment? Should the smoker pay for the right to smoke in a social setting, or should those present have to pay the smoker Not To Smoke?
Today, nearly fifty years after the first Earth Day, these issues of property rights and amenity rights remain unresolved and to a large degree define the differences between Republicans and Democrats. If you believe every individual Owns the Right to Clean Air and Water, Quiet, and Equal Opportunity, you are a Democrat. If you believe that every individual Owns a Right to engage in any personal and economic behavior they choose regardless of its consequences on others, you are a Republican. Sadly, it is hard to see any room for compromise between these Extremes.
Washington Post Tweetster Lie Count to date: 10,000 as of 5/1/19
This week’s wine tasting
Ottella Lugana Bianco ’16 Italy $15
Trebbiano di Lugano (Turbiana). Intense straw yellow color with green tinges. Exotic notes of candied fruit and citrus, warm and very deep on the nose. Widespread expressive finesse, with rich and persistent texture.
Elicio Rosé ’18 France $12
Syrah-grenache blend; bright vibrant pink; fruit-forward notes of fresh raspberries and summer flowers.
Atalaya Laya ’17 Spain $11
70% Garnacha and 30% Monastrell; Cassis, blueberry, pungent herbs and mocha aromas lead to an open-knit palateof fresh cherry, dark berry, and a hint of black pepper and a subtle floral note.
Coupe Roses La Bastide ’17 France $12
Carignan-Grenache blend; aromas and flavors of the garrigue underbrush of the high Minervois, laced with notes of blueberry and Carignan’s tarry black notes.
Seghesio Zinfandel Angela’s Garden ’17 $19
Nose has ripe bing cherries with a bit of leather that expand on the palate to ripe maraschino and Rainiers. Youthful and bright with a surprising depth of flavor and a youthful finish.
2072 Granger Way