lummi island wine tasting nov 16 ’18
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Uh-Oh…No Bread Friday till Nov 30!
On Tuesday this week our Baker celebrated a noteworthy Birthday, and took much of the Island to a wonderful dinner at Ciao Thyme in Bellingham. A bunch of us have a long history with the place, and it is always special and delicious.
Janice hand-picked the menu and chef Mataio pulled out all the stops to make it memorable. Sorry, haven’t found any photos of the event yet. Janice and David are off to Hawaii, will be back in time for Bread Friday in two weeks!
Speaking of Schedules…
Though we are just back from our trailer trip to California, the coming holidays call for even more travel and more shortened hours here at the wine shop. At the moment the schedule looks something like this:
-This weekend, Nov 16-17: open as usual Fri 4-7 and Sat 2-6
-Thanksgiving weekend, Nov 23-24: CLOSED BOTH DAYS
-Nov 30-Dec 1 and Dec 7-8: open both weekends for Bread Fridays 4-7 and Saturdays 2-6
-Dec 14-15: OPEN FRIDAY, CLOSED SATURDAY
-Dec 21-22 and 28-29: open usual hours
-Dec 31: 13th Annual East Coast New Year’s Celebration 7-9pm
Big Wines
Last weekend’s tasting was a Big Hit, despite the fact that all of the wines were on the Expensive side compared to what we usually pour. Generally the price range goes from around $10 to $20-something; last weekend it went from $19 to $40. Even so, we sold out of almost everything…Amazing!
As it turned out, we did NOT pour the Juggernaut Cab last weekend, because we didn’t have any! I had forgotten that the order had not arrived as scheduled before we left in mid-October. We substituted something else last weekend, and this weekend we Have Received three cases of it, at a special price that allows us to offer it for an astounding $17 instead of the usual $20! This is a Big Fat California Cab, rich in fruit, and just the thing to enjoy by a Fire in the earlier and earlier Evening Darkness around here.
Also on the Big side is a wine we have poured numerous times, not for Everyone, but with a definite appeal to those of us who like more rustic reds with a bit of unruly character. Such is our French malbec from Cahors, which flaunts a rustic tannic structure, dark berry flavors, solid minerality, and even a certain refinement….! Not as Big or Refined as the Juggernaut; but possibly a bit more Honest Representative of its terroir…!
Mar a Lago Update: A Finger in the Dike
As of today, the next Congress will likely have a House controlled by Democrats 229-198 (with 8 Independents) , and a Senate controlled by Republicans 51-47 (with two Independents). That means that all the House Committees will have majorities of Democrats and Dem Chairs. It’s a Very Different Balance of Power from the current Congress. Most importantly, the new cast of characters will have a lot more traction to demand information from the Tweetster, who has been abetted at every turn by Republican Party committee chairs in evading the normal accountability that has restrained every previous White House occupant from unrestrained Excess.
We have had two long years to contemplate the Magnitude of our Despair that this Buffoon, his Relentless Hubris, Razor-Thin Depth (“not enough water to float a boat”), Breath-Taking Ignorance, Unabashed Narcissism, and Infantile Vindictiveness. We have borne a nonstop sense of Violation and Deeply Personal Invasion as he has parlayed our Highest Office into a One-Man 24/7 Reality TV Show.
For those of us of a certain age, who really believed for many decades that Our Values were Noble, Egalitarian, Kind, and Wise, this man has been an ongoing. Heart-Breaking Insult. It is sobering to consider that he actually might believe that Everyone Else is just like him, pathologically attached to maximizing his own press coverage. As if column-inches, gigabytes, or total minutes of Air Time, positive or negative, were the Important Thing, not their value in bringing people together, providing Hope and Comfort, ending conflict, or Building a Better World.
So it feels like a Good Thing that in a few months there will be an element of our Institutions that might be able to enforce some tiny bit of Accountability on this Modern-Day Gollum…seeking words of Wisdom, let it be…!
Washington Post Tweetster Lie Count to date: 6,420 as of 11/2/18
This week’s wine tasting
Phantom Chardonnay ’16 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.
Monte Tondo Valpolicella ’16 Italy $15
The grapes are dried for about a month in a well ventilated “fruttai” before pressing, and ultimately aged for five months in oak. Not a frivolous wine, it packs loads of sour black cherry aromas, spices, violets, and roses.
Montes Classic Merlot ’13 Chile $11
Bright and complex, with blackcurrant and black cherry flavours and a rich, juicy finish. Aged in oak for six months before release.
Chateau la Croisille ‘Silice’ Malbec ”15 France $18
Plots located on the Luzech limestone plateau of Cahors, with its iron-rich siliceous red clays, aged one year in neutral oak, yielding a wine that is both rustic and polished.
Juggernaut Hillside Cabernet ’15 California $17
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 nov 9 ‘18
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Bread Friday this week
Semolina w/ Fennel & Raisins – A levain bread made with bread flour, semolina and some fresh milled whole wheat. A little butter for a tender crumb and fennel seeds and golden raisins round out the flavors, which pair really well with meats and cheese, but it also makes pretty darn good toast! – $5/loaf
Spelt Levain – Spelt is an ancient wheat grain with a nutty, slightly sweet flavor and less gluten than modern wheat. This bread is made with a levain, or sourdough, traditional bread flour and about 1/3 spelt flour, fresh milled whole spelt and fresh milled whole rye. – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Brioche Almond Buns – a delicious brioche dough full of butter, milk, eggs, and sugar, rolled out and spread with a rich almond filling before being rolled up and placed in baking forms and baked. Delish! – 2/$5
Radman Cab
As you all know we have been away for several weeks, and arrived home tonight on the 5:40 ferry. Though closed the last few Saturdays, the shop has been open on Fridays for Bread and Wine Tasting (an old and Wise tradition dating back Thousands of Years and the excuse for many a Human Gathering), and the shelves are getting Bare. Since this weekend marks the Annual Lummi Island Winter Studio Tour (for a long time held the first weekend in December but the weather was so consistently Inhospitable a few years ago it was moved to the second weekend in November.) So our choice was to restock via Distributor with uncertain delivery on Friday, or to shop on the way home. We chose the latter, and as a result four of our wines this weekend are from Oregon.
Most are from Chehalem Cellars or Sineann Winery which we visited yesterday. One hit from Sineann was a wine made by rookie winemaker Lisa of Radman Cellars, a cabernet from Red Mountain that will definitely get your attention.
If you browse through the list below you will notice that the wines are on average more expensive than our usual tasting array. All you need to know is that you will pay the same token tasting fee as usual despite the the superior quality of this tasting. These wines may all be a little more $$ than most of us are comfortable with, but hey, days are getting short, nights are getting cold, and every once in a while a little Gratuitous Self-Indulgence is warmly Fulfilling. So come on by and treat yourself to some of the Greater Comforts of our Civilization!
Mar a Lago Update: Rollerball Revisited
The Really Good News is that the Rag-Tag remnants of the once-proud Democratic Party have gained a two-year Foothold on Existence. That deserves a long overdue exhalation….Aaahhhhhhhhhhh….! Here we are clipped onto the Sheer Cliff of Corporate Obsolescence with cheap carabiners and rotten footholds, Barely Relevant, but still fighting against inevitable Corporate Control with a naive optimism that Justice will ultimately prevail. What we have gained is a “Well, maybe…!” and that is a Major Improvement over where we have been since the Tweetster Coup.
The more sobering news is that there was no Blue Wave, at best maybe a few Blue Ripples. Many Red States remain gerrymandered several percentage points out of reach for Democrats while also successfully and quietly removing many hundreds of thousands of Democratic voters from voter rolls in their states. The important task for the next two years is to restore balance to our electoral process by: 1) gaining control of more State Legislatures before the 2020 Census; and 2) restoring voting rights to millions of Democratic voters illegally deprived of their Constitutional Right to vote by being systematically removed from voter registration rolls.
The Great Enemy remains the consolidation of Global Power into fewer and fewer Corporate, Plutocratic Hands. There have not been nationalistic or moral wars for a very long time now. Rather they have been replaced by a global network of Proxy Wars that transcend national and idealogical borders with a common theme of replacing nation-states with corporate states. The metaphorical blueprint for all of this was brilliantly and presciently laid out in the mid-1970’s film Rollerball. Although the video version of the central philosophical scene of the film is no longer available online, the audio version is available here, where actor John Houseman describes to Populist Star Jonathan (played by James Caan) the Way Things Really Are.
This transcends political parties and even national borders. It is about Supernational Corporate Domination of every aspect of global management. The really scary thing about all of this is that there is so far no evidence that the Bazillionaire Players who are Driving all of this have even the slightest Awareness or Concern for the Fragility of our Planet’s Interdependent Systems or the sustainability of Life itself in an environment dominated by the Quest for Short-term Profit.
This week’s election may be far too little and far too late to make a difference. Or, more hopefully it might provide a Window of Possibility for a Compelling and Desirable Future. An important battle has been won, yes, but while the Orcs and their Dark Lords are still In Power the Age of Humans hangs by a Thread, and at the moment we are our own Worst Enemy.
This week’s wine tasting
Chehalem Three Vineyard Rose ‘17 Oregon 91pts $23
Showcasing strawberry in all its delicious forms, accented by rose petal, gravel and pale spice. A rich palate with bright acid tension lends to subtle notes of pomegranate and dried cherries.
Chahalem Inox Chardonnay ’16 Oregon 90pts $19
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.
Sineann Pisa Terrace Pinot Noir ’13 Washington/NewZealand $30
Made in NZ’s Otago region by Sineann winemaker Peter Rosback; full and ripe, with great structure, good natural acidity and subtle, lingering intensity; plum and black cherry flavors are framed by soft tannins and notes of baking spices, dried herbs and fresh earth.
Radman Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon ’15 Washington $40
Fruit sourced from Shaw Vineyards in Red Mountain AVA, wine made at Sineann winery. Deep and dark in color, classic nose of black currant, smooth and lingering palate of pruney black currant, gentle but persistent tannins, and long, smooth finish.
Juggernaut Hillside Cabernet ’15 California $20
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 nov 2 ’18
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Bread Friday this week
Barley & Rye w/ Pumpkin Seeds- Made with a levain that is fermented overnight before the final dough is mixed with a nice mix of bread flour and fresh milled rye, barley and whole wheat flours. Some buttermilk makes for a tender crumb, honey for sweetness and toasted pumpkin seeds add to the flavor and texture. A really flavorful artisan loaf – $5/loaf
Kamut Levain – Kamut, also known as khorasan wheat, is an ancient grain that has more protein than conventional wheat. Some people who can’t tolerate wheat find kamut to be more digestible. 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. – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Croissants! – Made with two preferments, a levain as well as prefermented “old dough” where a portion of the flour, water, salt and yeast is fermented overnight. The final dough is then made with more flour, butter, milk and sugar, laminated with more butter before being cut and shaped into traditional french croissants. – 2/$5
Rescued!
(click photos to enlarge)
The main purpose of our present trip was to attend a mini class reunion with some of my closest college mates. We had such a good time last year at our 50th back East that our friend Tim invited us all to his place on a mountain overlooking LA to watch Navy play Notre Dame (game in San Diego, we watching on TV), which as everyone knows, is the longest-running college football rivalry in the country, some 98 years this year.
To get to his house, one drives about 3 miles up a narrow, twisting one-lane road, often with a steep dropoff on one side, with a couple of seriously steep sections. We arrived on a very hot day, near 100°, and were making good progress until we got about halfway up a 17-degree slope, the steepest on the road, and the car just stopped…it did not have the power to get the trailer up that hill, and backing down was, um, Quite Unappealing.
What unfolded was a Welcome Rescue Operation in which Tim brought down his vintage six-wheel-drive Swiss Army Truck, and we hooked a chain from our towing ring (gotta love those Volvo engineers!) to the truck, and up we went! And though we worried the next couple of days about the trip down the hill, trailer and car brakes did their job and descent was tense but uneventful…all in all, a bit more Adventure than we had in mind, but as you can see the expansive view across LA and suburbs was well worth the effort!
Birthdays at Bodega Bay
We have mentioned a few times in recent years that a favorite camping spot with our trailer is a small RV park in Bodega Bay, California. The park itself, like many, is well-run and well-maintained, but comparatively speaking, offers no extraordinary amenities in the park itself. Its charm is that it borders on a California State Park and campground, often largely deserted in the off-season, offering few of the water and electric hookups that many of us are looking for these days.
We arrived here yesterday, and are parked next to Mike and Diane, close neighbors on the Island, and whom most of you know from the wine shop. Tomorrow we will leave here and caravan up US 1 toward home, arriving next week sometime.
Tonight we dined at a favorite restaurant nearby that we have mentioned before in this blog, a small and charming little place (Terrapin Creek) that happens to have a Michelin Star to its credit, definitely reflected in the quality of the food and service, but not particularly in the prices. (See previous posts here and here).
Once again we recommend it heartily if you are ever in the area…YUM!
Since our birthdays are about a week apart, (Pat’s a few days ago, mine a few days hence) this was a great opportunity for a celebration at a great little restaurant with dear friends from home!
Mar a Lago Update: Verifiable Voting
The long-awaited Midterm Election is just around the corner. Results will be in in less than a week. How much confidence to we have that the results will accurately reflect the Will of the People?
There are many reasons to be skeptical. Until the 2000 Florida debacle in which the Supreme Court selected the President on a legal technicality…a decision later proved contrary to the will of the people of Florida…most of us assumed that our election system was secure and reliable.
In 2004 Ohio was the New Florida, winning W another four years on questionable election results. Then of course we have the Debacle of 2016, with unprecedented spending by bazillionaire donors, social media infiltration and manipulation by Russian hackers, widespread disenfranchisement of left-leaning voters, and a nonstop slanderous media attack on Democratic Candidate Hillary Clinton. No one in their right mind believes even for one second that the Tweetster actually won that election.
So. Here we are on the eve of another National Election. By all accounts a large voter turnout is expected. How confident are we that the results of the election will accurately reflect the preferences of our diverse communities? The answer for most of us these days is “Not Very.”
Which is why, regardless of the outcomes of this particular election, which at present seem unlikely to bolster our confidence, it is in our collective long-term interest to: 1) support non-partisan efforts to make elections secure, accessible to all eligible voters, and verifiable, and 2) do away with partisan gerrymandering at every level of government and have voting districts designed by non-partisan organizations dedicated to fair redistricting.
A good way to support the first goal (verifiable voting) is through the Verified Voting Foundation, a non-governmental, nonpartisan organization founded in 2003 by David L. Dill, a computer scientist from Stanford University, whose objective is to preserve the democratic process by requiring that voting machines produce a tangible, verifiable paper receipt for each vote. Universal use of the verifiable paper ballot would have gone a long way toward preventing the loss in voter confidence after the 2000, 2004, and 2016 elections.
And the best way to support the second goal (ending gerrymandering) is to support the Campaign Legal Center, which works at all levels of government to support every citizen’s right to vote.
And of course…BE SURE TO VOTE!!!
This week’s wine tasting
Chat. Blizard Blanc d’Amour ’16 France $14
Grenache blanc, viognier, marsanne, rousanne; complex, fruity fragrances of grapefruit, white peach, lychee and acacia flower. Balanced, ample and suave, with a fresh finish.
Phantom Chardonnay ’17 California $17
Entices with rich layers of flavor. Green apple and pear transform into spicy notes of freshly baked apple pie, while barrel fermentation imparts a creamy, luscious mouthfeel.
Perazzeta Sara Rosso ’15 Italy $12
90% Sangiovese, 10% Ciliegiolo from the Tuscan south; bright and full-bodied with cherry, crisp acidity, and tantalizing earth tones make this pretty wine a winner with savory dishes.
l’Ecuyer de Couronneau Bordeaux Rouge ’15 France $16
Merlot-dominated it has been made with ‘easy-drinking’ very much in mind, offering a bit of New World ripeness; full bodied with good depth; palate of berries, red fruit, and hints of tobacco in a long finish.
Martoccia Poggio Apricale ’17 Italy $14
Sangiovese Grosso with a little Merlot and Cab Franc; Fruity and persistent nose of wild berries and spice. Soft and balanced with fine tannins this Sant’Antimo Rosso works well with any meal!
lummi island wine tasting oct 26 ’18
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Bread Friday this week
Polenta Sourdough – Made with a levain, also known as sourdough, in which the sourdough starter is fed and built up over several days, then mixed with bread f lour and polenta in the final dough mix. This is not the sweet corn cranberry bread that I have done in the past that is enriched with milk and butter, this bread is a nice rustic loaf with great corn flavor. – $5/loaf
Levain w/ Dried Cherries and Pecans – Also a levain bread using a sourdough starter. This allows the fermentation process to start and the gluten to start developing. The final dough adds bread flour and fresh milled whole wheat and then loaded up with dried cherries and toasted pecans. A nice rustic loaf that goes well with meats and cheese – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Fruit & Spice Rolls – Not as sweet as many of the pastry choices they include almost half whole wheat, butter along with dried cranberries and golden raisins, fresh orange peel and orange juice, and an interesting array of spices. Brushed with an egg wash and topped with demerara sugar before baking for that extra bit of sweetness and crunch. – 2/$5
War on The Verizon
While generally our trip is going well, there have been a few glitches. First, we find we have bitten off quite a bit more mileage commitment than is comfortable. But, as we tell the dogs, migration is its own reward, and like vacations of all kinds, the whole point is to change your routine enough that you have to pay attention to This Moment, because you can’t rely on Habit to get you through.
One source of Dissonance has been Pat’s new Ipad, bought a few months ago. Our old one was slowing down, not having the same energy it once had, forgetting how to do things it used to do easily…you know, signs of Old Age.
So the new ipad (her old one was a 2012 ipad 2) is faster and more efficient. But unlike the old one, which operated on a month to month contract with Verizon, this one was Bought from a Verizon Store, at an attractive price compared to the Apple Store. Or so we thought. The catch is that it came with a 2-year Contract, which included 2GB of data per month. And all seemed well till we started this trip. Yesterday we found we were out of data already, which is baffling for many reasons. Because we needed the GPS function that being online gave us, we spent hours finding a Verizon store, finding creative ways to reimagine the passwords, pin codes, Apple id’s, and several other arcane numbers that we had to know for Verizon to add data or even acknowledge that we or our machine or our account existed.
The customer service people at Verizon seem to do their best to cope with one’s frustration, but the overwhelming impression is that they are following rote scripts designed to sell us more time and more products rather than respond to our issues. The way the past couple of days have gone, we find ourselves longing for the good old days of pay phones and impossible-to-refold road maps; they were affordable, they worked, and you never had the feeling one gets today of Monster Corporations whipping legions of panting MBA’s to extract every last penny from every last Consumer. But, as I say, it’s been a frustrating couple of days…
Mar a Lago Update: You Have Mail!
It seems logical that there should be as many leftist Assassins and rightists. But since the news today about the bomb-threat packages sent by Someone to a dozen or so high-profile Progressives, we are again reminded that it is easier to name left-leaning victims of Assassins that right-leaning ones. Or is it?
To be sure, we have done no official Research on this topic. This is a much more casual philosophical inquiry: how many people around the world can you name who have been assassinated during your lifetime?
Let’s see…in no particular order: JFK, MLK, RFK, Gandhi, Allende, Rabin, John Lennon, all pretty much Lefties. Then you have some Righties, maybe done in by Lefties, but maybe by Further-Righties…Khadafi, Saddam Hussein, there are long lists on both sides.
Either way, they seem the result of deeply held political biases, the Frustration of not Feeling Heard, and the Ongoing Burden of feeling Misused, Abused, Exploited, Ignored, Insulted, and more by the Unfeeling Powers that Be (see above). We all have our own values and the biases that come with them, and many of us pile on with like-minded friends in pillorying leaders and ideas we deplore. As individual citizens we are Free to do that. As so-called Leader of All, the Tweetster’s Job is to represent the Entire Country. But like the Witches in Macbeth, he is Compelled to Stir the Pot, every moment, every day. And it takes an inevitable Toll.
This week’s wine tasting
Mer Soleil Unoaked Chardonnay ’15 California $16
A pure, clean expression of Chardonnay, fermented and aged in a combination of stainless steel and small concrete tanks. Aromas of flower blossoms and crisp pears, round and layered on the palate, with vibrant acidity and depth.
J Lohr Cypress Merlot ’16 California $10
Classic varietal aromas of black cherry and plum with subtle hints of oak; savory red fruit and comforting weight finishes with a touch of chalky tannin. Seriously over-delivers for its modest price.
Crios Malbec ’17 Argentina $13
Bright, dark red. Redcurrant, black cherry, ripe strawberry and spices on the nose; sweet red fruit flavors are complicated by earth, licorice and menthol; creamy fruit is firmed by smooth tannins…a terrific value.
Celler Can Blau Can Blau ’16 Spain $16
Aromas of ripe black and blue fruit with smoky mineral and licorice notes; Seamless texture, with sweet boysenberry, floral pastille and snappy spiciness. Finishes silky and long, with a sneaky tannic grip.
Piaggio Carmignano Il Sasso ’13 Italy $29
Rich, ample and voluptuous, with black cherry, plum, lavender, spice, tobacco and dried herb notes, and int3ense fruit and texture. There is not much subtlety here, just plain gorgeous!.
2072 Granger Way