lummi island wine tasting may 3-4 ’19
Friday Breads This Week
Buttermilk Currant – A really flavorful loaf made with bread flour and fresh milled whole wheat. A little honey for sweetness balances the flavors of the whole grain, buttermilk makes for a soft and tender crumb. Then lots of currants and just a little rosemary round out the flavors. – $5/loaf
Barley, Whole Wheat, & Rye Levain – a levain bread where the sourdough culture is built up over several days and allowed to ferment overnight before the final dough is mixed. Made with bread flour and freshly milled whole wheat, barley and rye flours. A hearty whole grain bread that is a great all around bread – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Brioche au Chocolate – A rich brioche dough made with plenty of butter, eggs and sugar, rolled out and spread with pastry cream before sprinkling with dark chocolate. The dough is folded over all that delicious filling and cut into individual pieces. As with all pastry quantities are limited so if you want these delightful pastries be sure and get your order in early. -2/$5
This Year’s Robin’s Nest, cont’d
click on photos to enlarge
Over the last week the chicks grew almost as big as the parents. As you might imagine, as the week went on it meant more and more food deliveries to the nest by both the roosting mom (only at night, too busy schlepping worms during the day!) and (we presume) the dad. In this photo taken yesterday, the dad ( you can only see his legs and tail) is precariously perched to feed one of the other nestlings not in sight. Balance is not a problem, though, because these feedings take less than about two seconds– seriously! So yes, this was a Very Lucky photo! And, as you can infer, the nestling is now of comparable size to the adult.
A couple of hours later there was only one young ‘un left in the nest. He would stand up from time to time and explore stretching and flapping his little wings. Hey these things must be good for Something, right? And most likely this one had seen the siblings jump out (Geronimo!) and could probably hear them nearby. So s/he had to be getting pretty motivated.
A little later it was taking a rest, as if to say, well, maybe I’ll just put this off till tomorrow…but a moment of distraction later, there was a kind of “clunk” across the yard, which prompted a look upward to find the bird was GONE, just like THAT! And we missed the Maiden Flight!
Not quite ready to say goodbye, we prowled over by the garage about 50′ away. Heard some rustling in the thicket of snowberry branches and cautiously approached, camera ready. A few more rustlings led to this photo, in which you will (of course!) recognize the same bird as in the previous photo (we are not making this up!)…So Cool!!!
Go well, Little Robins…!
Latta
Last July we poured Andrew Latta’s 2013 GSM (grenache/syrah/mourvedre), a standard Southern Rhone blend growing in popularity with Washington winemakers and their customers. It was a Big Hit with all of you, so finally we have brought in more, this time the 2015 vintage which we are pouring this weekend.
After growing up in Kentucky Andrew worked his way up from being a busboy in local restaurants to being a sommelier at a high-end resort in Thailand. He came back to America, got a job helping out at Washington’s Dunham Cellars, learned to make wine, and eventually became winemaker at Seattle’s semi-iconic Charles Smith winery. He opened Latta in 2011, and has set a standard for excellence at every step.
Each of his wines is a Complete Package, from opening aroma to lingering finish. At the moment we are enjoying our last bottle of the delightful 2013 GSM, and looking forward to sharing the 2015 with you this weekend. Admittedly we have not tasted it yet; but we have high confidence it will be Superb!
Mar a Lago Update: When the Truth is Found to be Lies
There’s a LOT going on this week, all of it suggesting Irreconcilable Polarities in Human Perception, Cognition, and Understanding which have profound implications for Our Long-Term Survival.
It is difficult to look at Human History and come to any other conclusion that there are Two Distinct Species of Human Beings. One group finds Comfort in Authority, and the other finds Oppression in Authority.
The Authoritarians long ago invented Religion to Institutionalize the Rules that Everyone Should Follow, and History is replete with examples of the Horrific lengths these Authoritarians would reach in the Name of Order. Millions upon millions of human beings have been ostracized, imprisoned, tortured, and murdered since the Dawn of so-called Civilization by the rigid Laws and Thought-Police Enforcers that Authoritarians always need to stay in Power.
The Dominant Event this week has been the Defiant Positioning of Authoritarian Attorney General Barr as he dissembled on Reality As We Know It…i.e. Lied to Congress in response to direct questions. The significance of this event was articulately amplified in an Op-Ed by former FBI Director James Comey in which he named Barr as yet another example how subordination to the Tweetster “Eats One’s Soul” bite by bite, submission by submission. Today we see the entire Republican Congress and Administration pledging Fealty to someone who has been documented with having presented 10,000 Lies as Truth since his so-called Election.
All of this wreaks havoc with the comfortable notions we have learned about Good and Evil, Right and Wrong. Everybody knows the Good Guys wear White Hats, and the Bad Guys wear Black Hats. So from childhood we have always had a vague uneasiness, wondering why would anyone would Choose to wear a Black Hat. Only two possibilities come to mind: either they know and embrace that they are the Bad Guys, and consider it just the small price they must pay to be in Charge and Collect their Daily Fealty; or they are able to close their eyes to all the suffering they create and Pretend they are the Good Guys who save people from Sin by Whatever Means Necessary.
Scary stuff.
Washington Post Tweetster Lie Count to date: 10,000 as of 5/1/19
This week’s wine tasting
Phantom Chardonnay ’17 Calif $17
Fermented and aged sur lie without oak; delivers rich aromas of white and yellow fruits, with bright crisp notes of citrus zest, honey, apple, and spicy minerality on the long, broad finish.
Campuget Tradition Rose ’17 France $11
Pale brilliant pink. Nervy, mineral-tinged aromas of orange zest and strawberry; Silky and light on its feet, offering zesty, light-bodied red berry and blood orange flavors and a bracing touch of bitter quinine.
Perazzeta Maremma Toscana Sangiovese ’15 Italy $12
Handpicked grapes from soils of ancient seabed fossils and aged for a year in neutral oak; bursts rich, ripe flavors and aromas of dark cherry, rosemary, sea salt, and violets.
Montfaucon Cotes du Rhone ’16 France $13
50% Grenache co-fermented on skins with syrah, cinsault, & old vines carignan and matured in concrete tanks; beautiful aromas of cherries, black currant; fresh and round on the palate.
Latta GSM ’15 Washington $28
58% Grenache, 23% Syrah and 19% Mourvèdre ; the mineral, savory, bright cherry aromatics of Grenache, the deep, meaty, earthy wildness of Mourvedre, and just the right amount of funk-laced floral Syrah. An outstanding wine from a warm vintage.
lummi island wine tasting april 26-27 ’19
Friday Breads This Week
Cinnamon Raisin – Made with a nice mix of bread flour and freshly milled whole wheat as well as rolled oats. Some honey for sweetness, a little milk for a tender crumb and loaded with raisins and a healthy dose of cinnamon mixed into the dough. It is a hearty rustic loaf. Great for breakfast toast, even better for french toast – $5/loaf
Toasted Pecan & Flax Seed – Made with a starter that is fed with rye flour instead of wheat flour for a different flavor profile. The final adds fresh milled whole wheat, toasted pecans, flax seeds and honey, for a very flavorful bread – $5/loaf.
and pastry this week…
Morning Buns – 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
This Year’s Robin’s Nest, cont’d
click on photo to enlarge
Today, standing at the far end of the porch, we managed to get a glimpse of one of the hatchlings in the eave of our entryway. They are getting bigger!
The nest appears empty more often now as both Mama and Papa are away a lot fetching food. Yesterday morning we saw Mama delivering food to three hungry beaks, and then less than a minute later, Papa arrived with the next meal. Papa is smaller than Mama, and does not roost with the chicks, but does do some of the feeding and nest-guarding. Between them they may make over a hundred feeding visits each day. They must enjoy it, because in each annual season, a robin pair might breed three times, raising up to a dozen offspring in a year. They also take turns watching the nest from a distance and raising a distractive ruckus if the nest is threatened by other animals, you know, like us!
Apparently each hatchling is brought something like 12 feet of earthworms in its two-week hatchling stage in the nest…and that is just the Worm Course!
It does make one wonder…how come robins can be Complete Robins right off the Assembly Line, while Becoming Fully Human seems more Challenging…
Mas Doix Winery
Right about now (late April- early May) in the hauntingly austere Priorat wine region of Spain is the annual Priorat Wine Festival. If you imagine the Priorat region shaped like a funnel, with the wide end North and the funnel end South, the funnel would open into Falset, where the annual Wine Festival is held. We were fortunate enough to attend several years ago…imagine the better part of a week tasting great wine and eating great food in a spectacular geographic setting unlike any other…yes, we would go again!
This week’s offering from Priorat is from Celler Mas Doix (possibly pronounced something like “mahss doitch” in Catalan). It is blend of garnacha, carinena, and syrah from the northern portion of Priorat, from soils rich in the famous licorella soil consisting of slate (derived from clay or volcanic ash) and quartz.
While some scientists think “the plant cannot take up compounds from the soil that you would consider flavor,” others note that the licorella forces vines to grow very deep to find water, giving the wine unique character and concentration of flavors. We favor this latter view– there is something special going on with these wines, more so in some vineyards in some years, but strongly indicative of a unique, even iconic regional terroir.
Mar a Lago Update: Why so many Candidates for President?
We all were puzzled by the extraordinary number of Republican Presidential candidates in 2016. And we continue to be amazed at the breadth of the Democratic Field in 2019. The only thing that is different is that this time it’s a score of Democrats seeking to challenge the Incumbent Squatter to take over the Oval Office. It’s a good time to wonder…what changed in recent years to bring so many people with no chance whatsoever of winning to announce their candidacy?
The easiest answer is Advertising and Name Recognition. No one on the Planet had ever heard of you before you announced your “Run,” but quite a few will remember (if only vaguely) that you did…“oh yeah, what’s-his-name from where-do-you-call-it.”
That in itself serves to take someone from a backwater Local Stage into at least a minor slot on a Major Stage, and to be in a national Spotlight for a little while. This kind of exposure proves helpful for getting on lists for cabinet positions, building donor lists for future campaigns, building markets for future books, all manner of things.
One way to look at it…and it is Especially True with the current Fake President…running for President is The Best Ticket to getting yourself and your ideas seen and heard across the nation, and that kind of exposure Opens Doors and Creates Future Options. It can make an Oops candidate like Rick Perry, a spaced-out Brain Surgeon like Ben Carson, or a despicable human being like Newt Gingrich (Ging-Grinch?) into Cabinet Secretaries or well-paid Talk Show Pundits.
It’s about a year till the Primaries will decide who the candidate will be, and who the Also-Rans are, so for the next little while we can all sit back and watch it Unfold. Hopefully the process will be interesting, productive, educational, and effective at producing a winning candidate.
Washington Post Tweetster Lie Count to date: 9,451 as of 4/1/19\
This week’s wine tasting
Ronan by Clinet Bordeaux Blanc ’15 France $15
80% sauv blanc, 20% semillon; fresh and appealing aromas of yuzu, grapefruit, white flowers, and passion fruit; flavors of citrus, white fruits and warm spices are fleshy yet crisp and clean.
Whidbey Island Winery Rosato ’18 Washington $15
A dry, vivacious, Provençal style rosé from Sangiovese and other Italian varietals; intriguing flavors of strawberries and cream, white cherries and kumquat…Summer in a bottle!
Lagone Aia Vecchio ’16 Italy $15
“Super-Tuscan”blend of Merlot, Cab Sauv, and Cab Franc. Rich and expressive, with aromas of cherry, vanilla, raw beef, and herbs; structured palate of plum, wild berries, and hints of spice, with a long finish that begs for food.
Bieler La Jassine Cote du Rhone ’16 France $15
(63% grenache, 37% syrah) Solid, with plum and blackberry compote flavors forming the core, backed by a good snap of licorice and a dose of dark toast on the finish. Has good drive overall.
Mas Doix Les Crestes Priorat ’16 Spain $23
Garnacha, carignena, syrah blend from iconic licorella soil; balanced aromas of dark ripe cherries and dried herbs, palate of ripe stone fruit with bright and lingering acidity.
lummi island wine tasting april 19-20 ’19
note: some photos may link to larger formats when clicked…
Friday Breads This Week
Pan de Chocolate – Not a typical enriched sweet pastry dough made with lots of eggs, butter and sugar. Made with a levain it is a rich chocolate bread made with bread flour and fresh milled rye flour, honey for sweetness, vanilla and plenty of dark chocolate. Makes fabulous toast, even better french toast! – $5/loaf.
Brioche Loaves – Definitely not a poor man’s brioche– loaded with eggs and butter, a little milk and some sugar for a tender crumb and luscious flavor. Fermented in the refrigerator overnight, then formed into loaves and put into loaf pans for baking, this bread will make great French Toast! – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Colomba di Pasqua (“Easter Dove”) – A traditional Italian Easter bread similar to Christmas panettone. Made with a sweet italian levain as well as flour and plenty eggs, sugar, honey and butter plus vanilla bean and candied orange peel. Topped with a crunchy almond and hazelnut glaze and pearl sugar before baking in a dove-shaped baking form as a symbol of the Easter dove. $5/loaf
Saturday Concert April 20!
Make your plans now! Our Annual Spring Concert with singer-songwriter-minstrel Robert Sarazin Blake! This year’s concert will be from 2-4pm this Saturday, April 20 in the wine shop!
As Robert’s many local followers know, he is a modern-day troubadour who travels widely (mostly here in the Pacific Northwest , Germany, and Ireland) to share his craft, very often in pub atmospheres like our dear wine shop. And to all venues he brings his sonorous voice, open heart, wry humor, and engaging songs to weave a web of well-being around you. For those of you who have not attended any of our concerts, know that our little shop is a great venue for Robert’s style, which is is always engaging and energizing. Learn more about Robert’s music here.
Suggested performance donation is a modest $20 per person, and a selection of wines will be available by the glass. And since space is very limited, please confirm reservations soon!
Please note our regular Saturday wine tasting will follow the concert, from 4-6pm.
This Year’s Robin, cont’d
The robin’s nest above our entry over the last few weeks has brought to mind the classic image of the expectant father pacing in the hospital waiting room while the mom is in labor. In this case, there has been no sign of hatchlings since we saw three eggs in the nest when we got home three weeks ago, and we have been, well, Worried. Why is it taking so long? Maybe she is instinctively going through the motions but the eggs are not going to hatch…?
So today I couldn’t stand the suspense any longer and when Mama Robin was away I brought a stepstool onto the porch, climbed up and peered over. It was a Huge Relief to see two (at least) tiny chicks deep in the nest, craws open, waiting for Food. They are tiny, not more than a couple of days old ( photo at left is from two years ago, another robin entirely, whose chicks were close to fledging in this photo).
We also noticed the appearance of a male robin, who is participating in providing food for the babies and distracting intruders. In these challenging times, this simple scene is surprisingly Reassuring. Yes, we think to ourselves, there is still Magic all around us…!
Mar a Lago Update: Mr. Rock and the Pointless Forest
Today’s release to the Public and the ensuing All Day Punditry regarding– finally!– the release of most of the Mueller Report– has been both Compelling and Exhausting in its endless cycle of Spin and Counterspin. “Enough, Enough, I Can’t Take Any More!” we find ourselves ready to shriek, and the very next moment we tune in again…maybe This Time there will be a Point we can all Agree upon. Sadly, so far, no, not so much.
At this late hour it has reminded us of a Sweet Little Animated Feature from some decades ago called The Point, written and performed by the Legendary Harry Nilsson. You can listen to the entire sound track here. You can see a brief trailer here.
The basic story is that in a land of Pointy-headed people a little boy is born with a Round head. Being Pointless, he and his dog Arrow are Banished to the Pointless Forest where they encounter many Teaching Moments. In particular, in light of today’s events, we are reminded of his exchange with the wise and Very Hip Mr. Rock, who, from his perspective of having been around nearly Forever and, like, Seen It All, tries to teach Oblio that it is perfectly okay not to have a point, and that he should “Be Cool…be Steady as a Rock.”
All day today we have all been wandering in the Pointless Forest, where no one’s opinion about Very Essential Truths seems to have changed in light of the Established Facts from a lengthy and conscientious Investigation. As Mr. Rock said to Oblio and Arrow, “you see what you want to see, and you hear what you want to hear…all you gotta do is open yo’ mind along with yo’ eyes…”
Washington Post Tweetster Lie Count to date: 9,451 as of 4/1/19\
This week’s wine tasting
Excelsior Chardonnay ’17 South Africa $10
The nose shows hints of peach, lemons and orange blossom backed up by a touch of oak. The palate is fresh and creamy with great lengthand lingering acidity.
Campuget Tradition Rose ’17 France $11
Pale brilliant pink. Nervy, mineral-tinged aromas of orange zest and strawberry; Silky and light on its feet, offering zesty, light-bodied red berry and blood orange flavors and a bracing touch of bitter quinine.
Clone 7 Merlot Washington $10
Ruby black color. Toasty aromas and flavors of dark chocolate, creme brulee crust, and dried berries with a silky, bright, dry-yet-fruity body and smooth, breezy notes of earthy mocha with soft, dusty tannins.
Morgan Cotes du Crows Syrah ’16 California $17
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.
Lopez Heredia Vina Cubillo Crianza ’09 Spain/Rioja $22
Juicy and soft; fermented with natural yeasts and matured 3 yrs in neutral barriques; aromas of leather, cherries, spices and smoke. On the palate deep, full-bodied, and balanced, with a long, classy, vibrant finish.
lummi island wine tasting april 10 ’19
note: some photos may link to larger formats when clicked…
Friday Breads This Week
Sonnenblumenbrot – aka Sunflower Seed Bread Made with an overnight pre-ferment before mixing the final dough with freshly milled rye, then loaded up with toasted sunflower seeds and some barley malt syrup for a typical German seed bread- $5/loaf
Pain Meunier – Made with pre-fermented dough it 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
And pastry this week…
Traditional Croissants – No filling, nothing fancy, just delicious french pastry made with a levain as well as pre-fermented dough – The final dough is made with more flour, butter, milk and sugar, and laminated with more butter before being cut and shaped into traditional french croissants. 2/$5
Saturday Concert April 20!
Make your plans now! Our Annual Spring Concert with singer-songwriter-minstrel Robert Sarazin Blake! This year’s concert will be from 2-4pm on Saturday, April 20 in the wine shop!
As Robert’s many local followers know, he is a modern-day troubadour who travels widely (mostly here in the Pacific Northwest , Germany, and Ireland) to share his craft, very often in pub atmospheres like our dear wine shop. And to all venues he brings his sonorous voice, open heart, wry humor, and engaging songs to weave a web of well-being around you. For those of you who have not attended any of our concerts, know that our little shop is a great venue for Robert’s style, which is is always engaging and energizing. Learn more about Robert’s music here.
Suggested performance donation is a modest $20 per person, and a selection of wines will be available by the glass. And since space is very limited, please confirm reservations soon!
Please note our regular Saturday wine tasting will follow the concert, from 4-6pm.
This Year’s Robin, cont’d
We mentioned last week that a robin was brooding three eggs in a new nest above our entryway porch. The robin is still there, and as yet we have seen no signs of hatchlings. In theory the eggs should hatch within a couple of weeks, and it is now two weeks since we got home from our trip and found the new nest.
She is getting somewhat used to us, seeming less compelled to drop silently out of the nest, fly to a nearby tree, and sing to distract us from the nest. So everything seems to be unfolding as it should. Still, we find ourselves glancing up at the nest frequently, hoping to see or hear signs of a successful hatch.
So we fuss over Another little Local Drama…Spring comes, the grass grows by itself…!
Mar a Lago Update: The Jig is Up
Intensive Ongoing Research continues to confirm that at the End of the Day, which might occur much sooner than we have generally imagined, the impacts of Our Species on Global Climate might well cause Mass Extinction of most living species– including ours– currently inhabiting our Dear Planet Earth.
We have known about the Existential Threats posed by our unrestrained burning of vast amounts of fossil fuels for at least forty years, but our Leaders have chosen to ignore them. We are, after all, a “social species,” which apparently means we are at least as persuaded by the effects of our actions on our Standing in the Social Hierarchy Right Now as we are by what Reason has to say about the Distant Future, like, you know, a week from Tuesday.
We are reminded of the fable of the Tortoise and the Hare—(skip the ad for a surprisingly timely rendition) except that in the current case– in contrast to the Moral of the Fable– the Short-sighted Hares have taken almost complete Political Control of much of the world. Given that there are indeed lots of ego-driven Hares out there, our compelling Question– both Political and Existential– is How can We possibly Survive?
It is one thing to be skeptical about Opinions. It is an entirely different thing to be in Denial about, as Al Gore called them, “Inconvenient Truths.” Seriously, how can a person have lived through the last thirty years and not Get It that: Storms are getting Worse; Habitats are getting too dry, wet, hot, or cold to support the species which have lived there for Millennia; cycles of wet-dry-hot-cold are making the production of food more difficult in many places where it had been Easy; and long-established patterns of human development and habitation along coastlines and rivers have been increasingly devastated by flooding from increased rainfall, higher tides, and more powerful winds, all of which will continue to worsen for a long time even if we act now to slow the rate of change.
The takeaway here is this: anyone who doesn’t Get It that Global Warming is an Immediate Existential Threat to Life as Our Species has always known it is Part of the Problem in a time when we Most Desperately need Solutions. It is futile to argue with them, and time to move on without them.
Washington Post Tweetster Lie Count to date: 9,451 as of 4/1/19\
This week’s wine tasting
Lasso Bianco ’16 Portugal $12
Apples, green plums and peaches round out lemon zest acidity in this soft, fruity white wine. It is ready for drinking, finishing with an attractive warm finish.
Bieler Bandol 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.
Indaba Merlot ’15 South Africa $10
Crafted in a fresh, pure style, this velvety Merlot seduces with aromas and bright, juicy flavors of cherry, dark berry and plum backed by subtle mocha and herbal nuances and a delicate minerality.
Carmen Carmenere ’16 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.
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