lummi island wine tasting sept ’23 autumn equinox
Hours this weekend:
Open Friday & Saturday, September 21-22, 4-6 pm
– Mike in his Island Parade clown suit!
This week’s wine tasting
Ryan Patrick Rock Island Chardonnay ’20 Washington $16
Aromas and flavors of wildflowers, crisp apples, honey, and cinnamon roll with a round, crisp, body and a graceful finish of sumac-spiced croutons.
La Atalaya del Camino ’20 Spain $15
Intense aromas, fruit, and elegance on the nose with a distinct spiciness and a touch of floral notes. Rich and meaty structure, with rich dark fruits and hints of spice. Smooth and pleasant long finish.
Phantom Red Blend ’20 WA $17
Petite Sirah- Zinfandel blend delivers palate of dark blackberry and boysenberry with pepper notes and on a balanced structure with tantalizing layers of baking spices sandt velvety tannins.
NO Friday Bread Pickup This Week!
Whole Wheat Levain – Made with a sourdough starter that is built up over several days before a levain is made and fermented overnight in the refrigerator. This long slow process allows the fermentation process to start and the gluten to start developing; it has a ‘toothy’ crumb, great texture and flavor and a nice crisp crust. – $5/loaf
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 that go really well with meats and cheese – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Brioche Almond Buns – Made with a delicious brioche dough full of eggs, butter and sugar. Rolled out and spread with an almond cream filling. The almond cream is not made from pre-made almond paste, but rather is a delicious creamy filling made with lots more butter, sugar and eggs as well as almond flour. Yum! – 2 /$5
Wine of the Week: Phantom Red Blend ’20 California $17
The Bogle winery– a group of wineries these days– is a stone’s throw west of the Sacramento River, and about equidistant from Sacramento and Lodi in the Sierra foothills. It’s a big outfit, with 2000 acres of vineyards, a constellation of wine labels, and local roots tracing back to a Civil War vet and his nephew who moved to the area in the 1870’s. They grew orchards which they farmed until the Depression made them tenant farmers in nearby Clarksville. Over succeeding decades they planted vineyards, and now have an extensive portfolio of vineyards and wine labels.
“Each lot of grapes that goes into our Phantom program is hand selected from the multiple vineyards we have,” says Director of Winemaking Eric Aafedt. “We are looking for the grapes with notable quality and character to create a ‘reserve’ tier of wines.”
The best grapes are selected for the Phantom wines, and spend an extra year in 1- and 2-year-old American & French oak,” says Eric. “This time in the barrel creates a deeper concentration, a subtler touch of tannin and a richer mouthfeel for the wine.”
Phantom also has a unique and personal story to its name…”Bogle” is the Scottish word for “ghost.” Legends tell of a Phantom that stalked the hillsides of Scotland, only to travel to the New World and settle with the Bogle’s here in California. Today, sightings continue to occur at the family’s winery.
Mar a Lago Update: Climate Change, Forced Birth, and Voting Rights
Chris Hayes’ program last night made an encouraging case, based on a 538 analysis, that the political outlook is likely much better than various pundits keep implying. We all hear the Maga voices stuck in a repetitive loop of far-fetched , baseless conspiracy theories and a chronic obsession with Hunter Biden. They have no data-based arguments to support their insane Alternative Facts that somehow prove the Tweetster won the 2020 election, that the only danger to our country is Wokeness, and all the rest of it. We all see and hear it blaring every day, all day.
Everyone recalls the general fear that the 2022 election was going to be a “Republican tsunami,” a massive popular rejection of all things Democratic (or, as GOP grammarians prefer to call it, the ‘Democrat” Party). But, as we all know, while Democrats lost control of the House, they gained a small majority in the Senate and a large enough caucus in the House to have allowed the many legislative accomplishments the Biden Administration has produced in these divisive times.
The coverage focused on some thirty special elections held in the past year at varying levels and locations. The takeaway is that there no “tsunami.” In fact, in almost all cases, even in losing, the Democrat garnered far more votes than anyone had predicted. To put it another way, a lot of people Republicans were counting on (taking for granted…?) turned away from them, and that is a Pretty Big Deal.
While Republicans have gone even more Maga since 2020, much of America has moved on. While Maga is legislating forced birth for every female human being unfortunate enough to experience an undesired or life-threatening pregnancy, many American women are shouting No! A majority of women, especially young women, are not Maga, not Republican, not evangelical Christians, and are demanding the Constitutional freedom to make the religious, ethical, and practical decisions they choose.
In short, the present remnants of the Republican Party are the progeny of Reagan’s Southern strategy of race-baiting and his “trickle-down” economics that made a handful of people grotesquely wealthy at the expense of everyone else on the planet. So not only do they want to control every woman’s body to their template, they also want remove every economic safety net for the masses. Somewhere in their model is a world where a small handful of white men will own everything in a Giant Company Store that employs everyone, on which everyone depends for everything, and which maintains everyone at a minimum sustainable level.
If this sounds Dystopian, that’s because it is. Americans of all stripes are turning away from the tyranny such a model represents. Voters in many states, including Red ones, are acting to preserve the right to choose in their Constitutions, and slowing escalating damages from increasingly destructive winds, floods, heat waves, desertification, fire, and smoke damage.
Each year these damages have been getting worse, until now, this year, the entire world seems finally to be waking up to the sobering reality of the threat as many places become, first, economically uninhabitable (not worth rebuilding in the same way in the same place), and soon after, physically unlivable.
The growing question on the floor raised by the declining election performance of Republicans across a wide swath of America is whether Republicans are justified in taking for granted that the Tweetster’s voter base is also theirs. They have had no party Platform except to support whatever he says or does for nearly a decade. As mentioned above, that does not position them well with a public that is increasingly concerned about rapidly shrinking global habitability, increasing authoritarianism, and even the ability of civilization to persist.
lummi island wine tasting sep 15-16 ’23
Hours this weekend:
Open Friday & Saturday, September 15-16, 4-6 pm
This week’s wine tasting
Chapoutier Belleruche Blanc ’21 France $14
Delicious blend of grenache blanc and roussanne; fragrant and perfumed with a light, grilled-lemon note over ripe melon,with a lingering palate of rich white peach.
La Vielle Ferme Rosé ’22 France $11
Classic and tasty blend of grenache, syrah, and cinsault from northern Provence; fruity, dry, crisp, delicious, and smooth, all at a bargain price!
Townshend Cellars T3 Red Washington $16
Bordeaux style blend of cab, merlot and cab franc; fruit forward with hints of black currant and vanilla, with layers of complexity and depth through extensive oak aging in French and American barrels.
L’Envoye Fleurie Beaujolais Gamay Noir ’19 France $18
Lilting aromas of violets and roses, red fruits and berries; flavors of pomegranate and fresh summer fruits are enlivened by a vibrant acidity and a supple finish with fine, well structured tannins.
NO Friday Bread Pickup This Week!
Sorry, as all of you on the bread mailing list already know from Janice…
“There is NO bread Friday this week. I’m off on my annual baseball trip with my nieces… We’ve been traveling around the country visiting a different baseball park for 20 years. Now my nieces have daughters and they come as well. It’s a fun tradition..!”
Wine of the Week: L’Envoye Fleurie Beaujolais Gamay Noir ’19 France
Fleurie is known for an elegant, floral style of Beaujolais from free-run juice– i.e., not mechanically pressed. Chateau Vivier is one of the oldest monopole plots in the region, where east-facing, 50-year-old untrained vines are grown in deep granite hillside soils and produce lively, expressive wines.
Half the fruit was de-stemmed and vinified in concrete tanks, while the rest went through carbonic maceration,which provides a floral lift and intense primary fruit. After 2 weeks the free-run juice was racked to stainless steel where the wine continued its élevage. The takeaway here is that it is a carefully made wine!
We confess limited experience with beaujolais and have only a handful of these left…so we will pour while they last this weekend, and if popular will get more!
Mar a Lago Update: Republicans go Full Troglodyte
Inauguration Day in 2020 was, we thought, the final defeat of the Morlocks and their Head Troglodyte, a welcome relief after four years of insanity that would make even the Mat Hatter wince. We were SO naive, completely unable to anticipate, regognize, or counter the ongoing assault on our country from within.
The many months of House hearings on the attempt to overturn the 2020 Presidential election by force, deceit, mob violence, and a 24/7 flood of media misinformation brought some dawning awareness that yes, indeed, a large number of well-placed political players were refusing to accept that their candidate had lost the election, and were committed to overturning the election. Yet somehow, a great proportion of the country continues to believe the Republican lie over the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. An entire sector of the population, including in particular fundamentalist, rural, less-educated white Christian men are a willing audience to the wealthy white businessmen who exploit them and make the Tweetster their cause célèbre martyr.
It’s as if the Covid Pandemic not only ushered in three years of quarantine, hardship, sickness, and death to a global population, but also somehow facilitated a kind of social madness across our own nation, driven by the Tweetster’s constant lies and his national coterie of spineless lackies. Nothing sums up these people as well as the empty-headed parent characters in this little scene from the old movie Time Bandits.
As of this moment the Tweetster has been indicted on ninety-some felony counts across four jurisdictions– the kind of numbers that not even the most notorious gangsters of history ever came close to matching. And yet, despite the extraordinary seriousness of the charges against him, a substantial amount of national news coverage (Fox) poo-poos the charges, as if he is just an ordinary guy, a bit flamboyant perhaps, but all in good fun, eh?
The backdrop of this very moment is that our physical infrastructure is being destroyed one place at a time by fires, floods, droughts, super-storms, and super heat waves brought on by climate change, long-accumulating paybacks for our human excesses and irresponsibility. Under the auspices of “creating wealth,” corporate decision makers have for decades been ignoring or dissing the warnings of a World-full of scientific studies on global warming (many sponsored by oil companies) about the future costs of the global climate crisis we humans have unleashed.
One wonders if there is a connection between the expanding deprivations and infrastructure destruction from global warming and the increasing tyranny of governments, especially in the Third World. Bob Dylan was of course at least partially wrong when he wrote “When you got nothin’ you got nothin’ to lose,” because things can always get worse. A warming planet speeds up and amplifies the cycle of more evaporation here becoming unprecedented downpours there, more heat in the atmosphere creating more kinetic energy and higher, more destructive winds.
It is bad enough, scary enough, and challenging enough to be trying to keep our planet livable in a world where most world governments understand the stakes and commit to slowing, stopping, and reversing climate change as soon as possible. It is terrifying to contemplate how impossible that will be in a world led by grifter-dictators like the Tweetster and many corporate CEOs, who see the crisis as an opportunity to amass more personal wealth and power. You know, like Nero fiddling while Rome burned.
Leadership, intelligence, commitment, and dedicated service are the main ingredients for bringing our country and our world back toward a survivable balance. The sad truth is that this is not exaggeration — it’s really happening!
Right now, this minute, our nation is deeply divided not just on our values, but on the very facts of what we see, hear, and experience through our own senses. That sinking feeling you are experiencing is exactly what lemmings feel when most of their comrades start pushing them toward that dark cliff…
lummi island wine tasting sept 8-9 ’23
Hours this weekend: Friday & Saturday, September 8-9, 4-6 pm
This week’s wine tasting
mantis (not that easy to spot!)
Mas des Bressades Rosé ’21 France $14
Bright and refreshing classic Rhone blend of grenache, syrah, and mourvèdre, with splashes of Carignan and Cinsault; nice flavor balance of bright red fruit, wild herbs, and a vibrant, spicy finish.
Bodegas Ateca Atteca ’19 Spain $16
Displays aromas of cedar, an earthy minerality, black cherry, and lavender leading to a savory, deep, well-balanced red with succulent fruit and a lengthy, seamless finish.
Seghesio Zinfandel ’21 California $23
Aromas of deep dark fruits lead to a juicy, vibrant palate with notes of black cherry, black raspberry, fig, baking spice and fresh plum, and layered fruit flavors, finishing with supple, textured tannins and a lingering, complex finish.
Friday Bread Pickup This Week
Levain w/ Dried Cherries and Pecans – a levain is made the night before final mixing of the dough using a sourdough starter. This allows the fermentation process to start and the gluten to start developing. The final dough is made with the levain, 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
Pan de Cioccolate – Also made with a levain, this bread is a delicious chocolate artisan bread not an enriched sweet pastry dough with lots of eggs, butter and sugar. Rather it is a rich chocolate bread made with a levain, 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
and pastry this week…
Bear Claws!! – Made with a danish pastry dough rich in cream, eggs, sugar and butter. The dough is rolled out and spread with a filing made with almond paste, powdered sugar, egg whites and just a bit of cinnamon to round out the flavor. Then, because bears love honey, topped with a honey glaze after baking. As always, quantities are limited, be sure to get your order in before you miss out- 2/$5
To get on the bread order list, click the “Contact Us” link above and fill out the form. Each week’s bread menu is sent to the list each Sunday, for ordering by Tuesday, for pickup on Friday. Simple, right..? If you will be visiting the island and would like to order bread for your visit, at least a week’s notice is recommended for pickup the following Friday.
Wine of the Week: Seghesio Zinfandel ’21 California $23
The Seghesio family has been growing zinfandel grapes in Sonoma since 1895, some five generations ago, most likely starting with cuttings from closely related primitivo vines brought from southern Italy. Zinfandel from the region has built a reputation for big, fruit-forward red wines that coat the palate and fill the senses with their plush flavors and aromas. Over the decades the winery has developed numerous single-vineyard labels, each with its own special characteristics and sometimes hefty prices.
As is the case for many top wineries, “deselected” portions of the harvest that are not selected for the single-vineyard bottlings are blended to make this annual blend, which is predictably delicious and enticing in its own way. From year to year it reliably delivers a delicious zinfandel at a modest price…and elicits an appreciative “mmmm” after the first sip….! read more…
Economics of the Heart: Momentary Calm
By Honoré Daumier – Own work Yelkrokoyade, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44152850
We are delighted and relieved to report that Tuesday brought something of a resolution to the struggle our community has been having with County government since last November about ferry funding. This outcome follows a hard-fought campaign by an indefatigable group of islanders seeking fairness, transparency, and following the rules in the management and funding of ferry operations.
This battle has been going on since last November when our County Public Works, which manages ferry operations, predicted financial deficits in 2023 and requested the Ferry Advisory Committee to approve an immediate fare increase. But since significant rate hikes would have a substantial impact on those ferry users who had to make frequent trips to the mainland, some of us wanted detailed documentation for the fare increase.
Instead, in March PW introduced a complete rewrite of the ordinance governing fares that would allow the County to charge very large capital improvement costs (up to 20 times higher than ever seen before) against fare revenue as “routine maintenance” when everybody knew it was for repairing the failing infrastructure of a 60 yr old vessel.
From January to April a four-member majority of LIFAC became increasingly committed to passing that ordinance while also blocking open discussion of it, while the other three of us wanted more discussion about how the proposed changes would remove all the guard rails provided in the existing statute limiting the kinds of maintenance expenses that could be charged against fare revenues.
In April, these issues generated enough community concern that an ad hoc volunteer citizens’ “Working Group” formed and began gathering detailed data about existing law and the validity of County accounting assertions. Attempts to negotiate with LIFAC and County government proved challenging, but when the LIFAC majority resigned under pressure the volunteer group gained some traction with both the County Council and County Executive to postpone further action on the ordinance until August, a momentary relief.
But Wait! That promise was dramatically broken when a Council minority sneaked through a surprise passage of the controversial new ferry ordinance in late July, heaping August with a LOT of intensive lobbying, argument, discussion, and uncertainty. That all culminated in the County Executive’s veto of that bill two weeks ago and the subsequent failure of the full Council to override the veto just this week, definitely something of a victory for fairness and the first real exhalation in a long time. Whew!
So this moment brings a deep sense of relief that we can say, finally, at least for the moment, that both the Ordinance from Hell and the deceptively conceived fare increase are off the table. All of this is just another reminder of a favorite working principle, perhaps one Don Quixote might have embraced during his many trials and frustrations, though as he well knew, it was often futile…
“Where principle is involved, be deaf to expediency.” —Matthew Fontaine Maury
lummi island wine tasting sept 1-2 ’23
Hours this weekend: Friday & Saturday, September 1-2, 4-6 pm
This week’s wine tasting:
J. Laurens Cremant de Limoux Rose France $16
A longtime favorite here at AWG–Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc, and Pinot Noir; shows a gentle yeastiness, effusive effervescence and rich, tangy, mouth-filling fruit. Makes just about anything Festive!
Montinore Borealis White Oregon $13
Aromas of orange blossom, honeydew, guava and kiwi; sumptuous flavors of stone fruit, Meyer lemon and juicy pear drizzled with caramel.
Chapoutier – Cotes-du-Rhone Belleruche Rouge ’21
Intense black currant and raspberry notes with hints of white pepper; juicy, lovely palate with silky, delicate tannins; good pairing for grilled meats, pizza, pasta, and and (someone says) especially lamb ragu!
El Nido Clio ’19 Spain $45
70% monastrell, 30% cabernet sauvignon; glass-coating opaque purple with an expressive nose of pain grille, underbrush, brier, mineral, blueberry, and blackberry fruit leading to a plush, opulent wine with great density, savory flavors, and a lengthy finish.
Friday Bread Pickup This Week
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
Four Seed Buttermilk – Includes all the elements of whole wheat, adding cracked wheat and bran in to the bread flour instead of milling whole wheat berries. It also has buttermilk and oil for a tender bread and a little tang, and finished with a bit of honey and sunflower, pumpkin, and sesame seeds and toasted millet $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Rum Raisin Brioche: A delicious brioche dough full of eggs, butter and sugar. Filled with golden raisins and chunks of almond paste and (wait there’s more!) topped with a chocolate glaze before baking! – 2/$5
To get on the bread order list, click the “Contact Us” link above and fill out the form. Each week’s bread menu is sent to the list each Sunday, for ordering by Tuesday, for pickup on Friday. Simple, right..? If you will be visiting the island and would like to order bread for your visit, at least a week’s notice is recommended for pickup the following Friday.
Wine of the Week: El Nido Clio ’20 Spain $45
Though we have had a few of these stashed in the cellar for some years, we rarely let ourselves drink one…it’s that…um...covetable.! It used to be very hard to get because of the high demand and low production. But on occasional nostalgic whim we order some, and this week it happened again, so you can all get to taste it this weekend!
Clio is a blend of 70% monastrell (known as mourvedre in France) and 30% cab sauv. Monastrell, a somewhat demanding grape to cultivate, has been developed to a high standard in the Murcia wine region in recent years. At the same time international demand for wine has also led to widespread planting of cabernet sauvignon in many parts of Spain, where it has thrived and developed its own Spanish footprint, which this wine showcases very well. Lucky for us…come on by and try it!
Economics of the Heart: Climate and Local Infrastructure
Whew…after having been a bit over-focused on our local ferry financing for the last eight months or so, we are finally coming up for some much-needed air. During these months we have said relatively little about the relationship of our ferry issues to climate change; but actually it is a fairly central issue which these days most communities, including ours, increasingly find themselves forced to consider in most infrastructure investments.
A look at Google Maps makes it clear that the Gooseberry Pt. ferry landing is at the end of a peninsula on the mainland, about a mile, ten-minute passage from the Lummi Island landing. The east side of the peninsula extends into the southern estuary of the Nooksack River, while the west side of the peninsula forms Lummi Bay bordering the northern estuary.
Geologically speaking, the Gooseberry Pt. peninsula is also a sort of island, connected by a natural low bridge to the mainland which allows vehicle traffic most of the time. However, periodic flooding, super-high tides caused by combinations of high winds and full and new moon tides periodically cause road flooding that prevents vehicle traffic between the mainland and the G. Pt ferry dock.
Since these flooding episodes are expected to become more frequent and last longer over the next several decades, we should expect more frequent periods of days or even weeks when ferry service might require 8-mile trips to Bellingham, sharply diminishing the number of vehicles carried and the weather conditions under which service would even be possible.
For the foreseeable future, every public finance activity in every community is going to be increasingly impacted by climate change, with most of the financial burden falling on local, county, and state governments where most local infrastructure is built, operated, and maintained. These include roads and bridges, public transportation (ferries, buses, and trains), water supply, sewage treatment, and fire and emergency services. In recent years– and this year in particular so far– we have seen across the world atmospheric and ocean temperatures reach and maintain levels rarely seen by humans. As a friend memorably observed, “things are getting worse faster than we’re getting older!”
So not only are we hubris-driven human beings seeing damage getting worse and worse and the bills getting larger and more frequent from the accelerating climate impacts WE have wrought; we will also be bearing the ever-increasing expenses of rebuilding after each devastating hurricane, tidal surge, tornado, flood, heat wave, deluge, drought, and population displacement.
In earlier posts we have coined the term “economic uninhabitability” to describe the increasing number of geographic locations where changing local and regional climates are becoming too expensive to allow sustainable habitation or the large scale post-disaster reinvestment for their current populations. The emerging economic reality at many points on the Earth’s surface is that for at least the next several decades (assuming we work hard to turn the tide) it is becoming a fool’s errand to rebuild after a climate disaster without a solid likelihood the new structures will survive the increasing risks of record floods, fires, and high winds.
Many historically habitable subregions of the planet are becoming incapable of sustaining the local population in some places. In others rival communities must compete for increasingly scarce resources even to maintain the most basic subsistence. Such conditions are potential incubators of various forms of genocide, isolationism, and authoritarian minority rule. Dystopian conditions that were once the fictional hyperbole of post-apocalyptic sci-fit are now looming realities across the planet, and dire ones in the Third World.
Maintaining sustainable habitability in this era of rapid climate change will require a global commitment to preserving the ability of our planet to sustain cultivable land, adequate water, a livable climate, and a sustainable population.
We can all now see clearly that we have been both clever enough to survive and reproduce like rabbits for tens of thousands of years, and stupid enough to disrupt planetary cycles in ways that now pose an existential threat to the ability of our planet to continue to support life at all.
Maybe this is an appropriate time to ask ourselves as a species whether all the profits made by all the fossil fuel companies over the last century or so should be considered Social Benefits or Social Costs…
2072 Granger Way