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lummi island wine tasting dec 15 ’23
Winter Hours: Open Fridays 4-6pm
Happy Holidays!
We will be open both Fridays before Christmas for wine tasting and sales, 12/15 and 12/22.
January reopening will probably 1/12, depending on some possible changes in the bread delivery schedule.
Friday Bread Pickup This Week…
Black Pepper Walnut- made with a nice mix of flours, bread flour, fresh milled whole wheat and rye. A fair amount of black pepper and toasted walnuts give this bread great flavor with just a bit of peppery bite to it. Works well with all sorts of meats and cheese- $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…
Morning Buns – Made popular by Tartine Bakery in San Francisco…mine are 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
Island Bakery has developed a lengthy rotation cycle of several dozen breads and pastries. Each Sunday Janice emails the week’s bread offering to her mailing list. Orders received before Wednesday will be available for pickup at the wine shop each Friday from 4:00 – 5:30 pm. Go to Contact us to get on the bread email list.
This week’s wine tasting
Marchetti Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico ’21 Italy $14
Verdicchio/ Malvasia blend using only free-run juice; pale straw color with green overtones; intense bouquet of citrus, lemon zest, and floral notes,with complex fruity character, and crisp, well-balanced palate.
Sanguineti Morellino de Scansano ’21 Italy $14
Soil of river stones, quartz, sea shells; flavors of sun-ripened, slightly smoky fruit, fresh cracked pepper, sage, and ocean brine; taut structure and a long, slightly smoky finish.
Lancyre Pic St Loup Vielles Vignes ’17 France $16
100 % malbec; unfolds with dark, enchanting notes of blackberry, grilled plum, and jammy raspberry with accents of orange peel, vanilla, and tobacco spice, finishing with balanced structure, plush texture, and a lengthy finish.
Lovo Fior d’Arancio Sparkling Moscato ’18 Italy $15
A very rare clone of Moscato with an unmistakable citrus scent from nearby orange groves for a sparkling wine with refined bubbles and beautiful, pearlescent color, a perfect accompaniment to dessert, or maybe dessert all by itself!
Wine of the Week: Marchetti Verdicchio di Castelli di Jesi Classico ’21 Italy $14
The Marche wine region reaches east from the mountainous spine of Italy to the Adriatic. This week’s low-yield Verdicchio is a hallmark of the varietal, with refreshing citrus fruits, playful acidity, and complex minerality. Made only with juice from a gentle half-press, it is precise and engaging.
Established in 1968 as a DOC of 18 hilly communes, the Verdicchio Classico, or Castelli di Jesi, region, is located some 35 kilometers inland from Ancona, an unusual wine region near the Adriatic coast where red grapes are grown close to the sea, and white grapes prefer to be slightly inland. The distinction of being “Classico” is a recognition that “this is what wine from this grape is meant to taste like!”
Wine history of the region dates back to the Romans and before, with some clay artifacts such as amphorae dating the region’s wine production back to the Iron Age. These days, the verdicchios from the region have developed a consistent quality and tasting profile that sets them apart.
Economics of the Heart: Getting on Track Against Climate Change
The world has known for many decades about the linkage between fossil fuels and global warming. Numerous studies contracted by the oil industry as early as the mid-seventies pioneered effective methodologies for assessing the financial, social, environmental, and economic impacts of these projected changes.
Over the years the broad impacts predicted by those early models have proved surprisingly accurate in modeling how increased greenhouse gases would affect patterns of atmospheric and oceanic circulation, evaporation, rainfall, winds, flooding, ocean currents, ice cap responses, all of it. I had a part in one of those studies in 1980 looking at the possible impacts of global warming on world fisheries.
While I was skeptical that the political and economic power of the fossil fuel industry was likely to allow meaningful or timely response to this very serious environmental threat, I never dreamed the industry would not only delay action for four decades, but also go to considerable expense to downplay any threat of global warming, (and probably supplying Reagan with his quip that it had more to do with livestock farts than fossil fuels.) The whole world would not be in the mess it is today if energy industry executives had chosen to help rather than delay and obfuscate– as, we presume, they had been taught to do in business school.
Well, hopefully the decisions of this latest COP 28 will prove better late than never. The resultant unanimous agreement at this meeting seems due to the work of the the High-Level Expert Group on the Net-Zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Entities, a special committee formed by the Secretary-General of the UN specifically to increase the likelihood of success. The goal of the group was, in preparation for the recent COP23 meeting, to develop stronger and clearer standards for net-zero emissions pledges by non-State entities – including businesses, investors, cities, and regions – and speed up their implementation. The Group generated ten how-to recommendations for credible, accountable net-zero pledges for what non-State actors need to follow to achieve net-zero ambitions, a how-to guide for credible, accountable net-zero pledges.
Since it was launched last spring, the Group pursued its work amidst a persistent pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, global inflation, energy security concerns, and
increasingly destructive climate change‐fueled extreme weather around the world. Climate-related disasters have been most acutely felt in the world’s least developed countries, exacerbating the debt crisis they already face and underlining how the developed economies exported the environmental costs of their years of inaction onto the poorest societies.
This is apparent when we see that the Top Five global emitters (China, US, India, EU, and Russia) accounted for about 60 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions in 2021, and the Group of 20 (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union) are responsible for about 76 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Read more on UN and climate action:
Transforming climate issues into action
“Integrity Matters: Net Zero commitments by Businesses, Financial Institutions, Cities and Regions”
lummi island wine tasting mar 24 ’23
Hours this weekend: 4-6 pm Friday only
Friday Bread Pickup This Week
Honey, Wheat, Lemon & Poppy seeds – Made with a poolish that ferments some of the flour, yeast and water, but none of the salt, overnight. This results in a very active pre-ferment which is mixed the next day with the final ingredients which includes a nice mix of bread flour and fresh milled whole wheat. Some honey, poppy seeds and freshly grated lemon peel round out the flavors in this loaf. – $5/loaf.
Flax Seed Currant Ciabatta – Made with a poolish that ferments some of the flour and water overnight before being mixed with the final ingredients which includes a nice mix of bread flour and fresh milled whole wheat and rye flours. Loaded up with flax seeds and dried currants for a delicious bread. This bread is mixed with a lot of water that makes for a very slack dough so it can’t be weighed out and shaped like other bread, it is just cut into pieces. A really flavorful artisan loaf – $5/piece
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 on 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: Toso Reserve Malbec ’19 Argentina $21
Notes: Elegant and balanced with good concentration and ripeness;focused, clean notes of blackberry, plum, and ripe, dark cherries; a plush, elegant mouthfeel, easy tannins, and lingering notes of leather and Spring soil..
Pascual Toso winery is named for its original founder, who emigrated from Italy to Argentina in 1880 (OMD, that’s 140 years ago!). Sr. Toso settled in Mendoza, and with a family history in wine making, and intrigued by the exceptional quality of the vineyards in the region, opened his first winery in San Jose in 1890.
In subsequent years he (among others!) was a pioneer in proving the exceptional terroir of the Maipu Valley, where he bought land and developed vineyards. These days the winery has planted additional Bordeaux varietals cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc, which, not surprisingly, also do very well in Mendoza.
All these many decades later, the winery has changed hands over time and is now, like an increasing proportion of wineries globally, owned by a global corporation, which often leads to declining quality. In this particular case, though, the proof is in the tasting– this wine delivers a lot of flavor for its moderate price point!
This Week’s $10 Wine Tasting:
Maryhill Winemaker’s White ’20 Washington $
Sauv Blanc, Viognier, Semillon, Albarino and Pinot Gris blend makes for a flavorful Bordeaux-style white blend; a slow, gentle press cycle ensures optimum fruit character, and each varietal partially fermented separately before blending.
Townshend Cellars T3 Red Washington $18
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.
Toso Reserve Malbec ’19 Argentina $21
Elegant and balanced with good concentration and ripeness; focused, clean notes of blackberry, plum, and ripe, dark cherries; a plush, elegant mouthfeel, easy tannins, and lingering notes of leather and Spring soil..
Economics of the Heart: The Coming Scarcity of Everything
The recently released UN report on climate change has documented a very long list of ways that we humans could theoretically slow and reverse the catastrophic effects of the climate changes that we have brought forth on our Mother planet. The report analyzes numerous scenarios of atmospheric carbon reduction in detail, and concludes that yes, is still barely possible, if we act immediately, with deep, global, and unified commitment, that we could theoretically keep global average temperature increase under 1.5°C, and, you know, save the Planet. The report then goes into great detail analyzing how we got to this critical point and the possible outcomes of various global response scenarios.
In just the last two decades climate change has already caused substantial damages and irreversible losses to terrestrial, freshwater, cryospheric (permanent ice cover), coastal, and open ocean ecosystems. Hundreds of species have already migrated or perished from heat, drought, flooding, desertification, food scarcity, or increased predation, and human communities across the world are now regularly experiencing the worst storms, flooding, winds, and heat waves on record. And they are getting worse each year. It’s Here, it’s Happening, and it Getting Worse every day.
Even the tiny increase in average sea level rise of several inches in recent years has been enough to show us that coastlines are rapidly becoming economically uninhabitable already; it only takes one super-storm during a king tide to wipe out an entire community; how many times can one afford to rebuild?
Human populations across the world are now all experiencing the destructive manifestations of their own geography. Many places, particularly in lower latititudes, face increasing scarcity of both food and water as conditions grow hotter and drier. The UN report estimates that some 3.5 billion people are trapped in these failing “geomes” (just-coined term for “geographically bounded habitats”…?) where declining rainfall and falling food production pose grim prospects for the foreseeable future.
Roughly half the world’s population currently experiences severe water scarcity for at least part of the year due to a combination of climatic and non-climatic drivers. At the same time, ocean warming and acidification are adversely affecting food production from fisheries and shellfish aquaculture in some oceanic regions. The growing geographic– and hence also ethnic, racial, and cultural–redistribution of resource availability is combining with growing scarcities of food and water, failing governance, and increasing mass mortality from thirst and hunger to condemn entire populations to struggle for basic necessities.
It would be both wonderful and very surprising if the world were able to pull together into an “all for one and one for all” commitment. The Good News is that it is our best shot at an appealing global future, and it is “possible.”
Still…given what we know about human nature from history, leading up to and including the deliberate efforts of the energy industry to deny the dangers of climate change though they had sponsored the very studies — one of which I worked on 40 years ago– that predicted it with considerable accuracy. They spent many $millions over these forty years convincing people that global warming was nothing to worry about. All of this suffering, all of this anguish, and this existential threat to all life on our beautiful Planet Earth is because some greedy guys in suits were only concerned about their bottom line.
When you think about it, there seems to be something about our species that just doesn’t get the “system interdependence” thing…not the most promising species survival characteristic.
lummi island wine tasting feb 24 ’23
Hours this weekend: Open 3:30- 5:30 pm Friday Only
NOTE: Next week we will go back to our usual Friday hours of 4-6pm! And since it is still wintry (below freezing this week), and since we have been enjoying having the day off on Saturdays for while, we are not planning to open on Saturday for at least mid-February.
Covid (and a bunch of other winter bugs) are still around, more contagious than ever, but far less threatening for the vaccinated, masks are welcome but optional. These days we each get to manage the space around us in our own way. Please stay mindful of the risks, thanks.
Friday Bread This Week
Whole Wheat Levain – Made with a sourdough starter built up over several days before a levain is made and fermented overnight to start fermentation and gluten development. The bread is made with levain and bread flour and about 25% fresh milled whole wheat for 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. These flavors go really well with meats and cheese, but it also makes pretty darn good toast – $5/loaf
…and pastry this week…
Brioche Suisse- 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. 2/$5
To get on the bread order list, click on 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: Eola Hills Barrel Select Reserve Pinot Noir ’19 Oregon $27
Eola Hills winery was something of a pioneer in the Oregon pinot noir explosion. Founded in the mid-80’s, the new owners did much of the grunt work themselves, becoming both grape farmers and winemakers. Now, forty years later the company farms over 300 acres and makes 80,000 cases of wine a year…you know, another American “success” story: what begins as a creative dream rooted in land, family, nature, nurture, art and culture can go in all kinds of directions.
It’s hard to say if or when a growing wine operation transitions from being an artisan, hands-on winery that fulfills someone’s artistic dream into a major commercial player, or what, if anything, is lost or gained in the process. But that kind of success does suggest they have been doing something right…right?!
This “barrel select” reserve pinot is a blend of the best barrels (yes, there is barrel variation in each vintage) from several different vineyards, taking a shot at “the best of the best.”
Last week we tasted pinot gris from Ponzi, another Oregon pioneer winery that has done very well over the years. So both have played significant roles in the evolution of Oregon viniculture that put Oregon pinot noir on the global map.
See notes below
Economics of the Heart: When The Lines Stop Crossing
Economists are fond of graphs. Everyone has encountered the standard blackboard sketch of a “Demand Curve.” It has price on the vertical axis, and quantity sold at each price on the horizontal axis. With a little manipulation, it is a versatile tool to describe a lot of human behavior. The primary takeaway, of course, is that when the price of something rises, less of it will be bought/sold, and that will have cascading effects throughout an economy.
On the supply side, it is broadly true that in the short term, producers have a very limited ability to increase production when demand increases. This was clearly seen as global demand for all kinds of stuff started climbing as Covid vaccines became available and commerce began ratcheting up after a long quarantine. Our little demand and supply curves were quite handy at explaining how that led to worldwide inflation as suppliers of key resources in short supply (like international shipping) made astronomical profits, not because their costs went up, but because the sudden increase in demand for shipping far exceeded short-term supply– the classic path to coveted “windfall” profits.
Covid was just one warning signal about how the interdependence of the global economy makes everyone vulnerable to social, environmental, geologic, and political instability. All of these things are getting worse at an increasing rate, driven by two powerful forces that we humans have caused and continue to make worse: global warming and overpopulation.
Over forty years ago I worked on a research project exploring the economic impacts of global warming on world fisheries. My main takeaway from that project was that all living systems are deeply interconnected to each other through the global environment: sun, wind, rain, plants, animals, seasons. It is deeply sobering that we ‘Boomers’ were born into a world of some 2 billion people. In just our own short lifetimes we have now seen the recent birth of the eight billionth living human being on our planet. Our population has increased four-fold; we are everywhere, and we have not been kind to our planet.
Broadly speaking, there are two pathways to saving our planet and its life-giving web of interdependence over the long term: massive cooperation or massive conflict. Democracies lean toward the first, through cooperation and shared values. Autocracies lean toward the second, through exclusion and hierarchy. That really means that democracies have a cooperative chance for survival. But it’s hard to see how autocracy is compatible with an effective sense of interdependence…
to be continued…
This Week’s $10 Wine Tasting
Marques de Caceres Rioja Red Blend Organica ’21 Spain $18
75% Tempranillo, 25% Graciano; we all loved this wine when Judy poured samples of it three weeks ago, and found it a bit disappointing when we poured it at our tasting. So third time is the charm, right? How do we really feel about it?!
Eola Hills ‘Patriot Red’ Oregon $22
Zinfandel, Sangiovese, Merlot, & Pinot Noir from Oregon, Washington, & California. Intense aromas of fruitiness lead to a soft, smooth palate with flavors of red berry jam. All you need to know is it’s pretty tasty!
Eola Hills Barrel Select Reserve Pinot Noir ’19 Oregon $27
From best barrels from the 2019 harvest; classic, Burgundian-style pinot, with nose of fresh raspberries, earth, wet autumn leaves, and a silky palate of cherry and strawberry with a lingering cranberry tartness on the finish.
lummi island wine tasting october 29 ’21
**** NOTE: As we go to press tonight we are camped in the trailer at Bayview State Park. We have learned that the ferry is out of service for repairs, so we have decided to stay another night here and will NOT be opening the wine shop on Friday, Oct 29. Hopefully the ferry will return to service and we can be home to open on Saturday.
Current Covid Protocols
Last Saturday offered a pleasant taste of the quiet, off-season, pubby days of close neighbors and familiar faces. Very low-key and nourishing!
This week we will again offer indoor tastings on Saturday from 4-6 pm, with our familiar Covid requests:
— You must have completed a full Covid vaccination sequence to participate;
— We ask all to maintain mindful social distance from people outside your regular “neighborhood pods.”
Friday Bread
Each Sunday bread offerings for the coming Friday are emailed to the mailing list by Island Bakery. Orders returned by the 5 pm Tuesday deadline are baked and available for pickup each Friday at the wine shop from 4:00 – 5:30 pm.
Over the years the bakery has established a rotating list of several dozen breads and pastries from which two different artisan breads and a pastry are selected each week.
To get on the bread order mailing list, just click on the Contact Us link at the top of the page and fill out the form.
This week’s deliveries:
Pear Buckwheat – Begins with an overnight poolish preferment mixed the next day with bread flour and fresh milled buckwheat; the preferment allows the dough to begin to develop before the addition of toasted walnuts and dried pears soaked in white wine. – $5/loaf
French Country Bread – A a rustic country loaf made with bread flour, fresh milled whole wheat, and and a bit of toasted wheat germ. After building the levain with a sourdough culture and mixing the final dough it gets a long cool overnight ferment in the refrigerator. This really allows the flavor to develop in this bread. – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Pumpkin Muffins- Made with pumpkin and all the familiar pumpkin pie spices. Topped with a streusel made with butter, brown sugar and pumpkin seeds not to mention then filled with a cream cheese filling. Yum! Caution: may be addictive! – 4/$5.
Wine of the Week: Longship Lady Wolf Malbec ’18 Washington $25
Longship is a fairly new family-owned winery in Richland, in the heart of Washington wine country. Established in 2013, it has focused on producing big, hand-crafted, barrel-aged, red varietals like tempranillo, malbec, syrah, cabernet sauvignon, with at least 60% proportion aged for 18 months in new oak barrels.
The name “Longship,” and the adoption of the Viking Longship as the winery’s logo is a nod to the family’s Scandinavian heritage and the winery’s ongoing journey to produce some of the finest wines in the Pacific Northwest.
The Richland tasting room was added at the end of 2016, not just to feature their wines, but also, as is the case here at the Wine Gallery, to create a social space where friends can gather to relax in a convivial environment while sharing delicious handcrafted wine.
We took an immediate liking to the wine when we tasted it a couple of weeks ago. Chances are you will, too!
The Economics of the Heart: Oil is the New Tobacco
“Climate scientists are now as certain that the burning of fossil fuels causes global warming as public health experts are sure that smoking tobacco causes cancer.” —
The House Committee on Oversight has recently begun questioning energy company executives about the disinformation they have been spreading for decades to minimize the threats of climate change from the burning of the fossil fuels they produce and we all have used.
In 1980 I was involved in a project at Battelle Labs exploring the potential economic impacts of anthropogenic (human-induced) climate change. Though this was very early in the game exploring climate change, there were already several sophisticated climate models sounding the alarm. My portion of the study looked at the likely impacts on marine fisheries, and identified many areas of concern we have been observing right here in our own marine environment and habitat.
Broadly speaking, though the atmosphere is one gigantic element of an intricately interdependent global system, even the pioneering models in the seventies were sophisticated enough to include the interactive thermodynamic relationships among the distributions of global atmospheric temperatures, wind patterns, evaporation, rainfall, ocean temperatures, circulation patterns, and salinity, as well as an intricate array of positive and negative feedback loops that could slow down or accelerate global warming.
The article also highlights obvious parallels between the multi-decades battle between government and Big Tobacco and the current battle to fully expose and end Big Energy’s multi-decade PR campaign to discredit climate change as a global existential threat. Tobacco kept regulation at bay for decades, and Big Energy has presented an even more impenetrable barrier to reducing carbon emissions.
As the beginning quote above suggests, most humans on the planet have seen and experienced the effects of climate change in their own geographical settings. Broad swaths of the planet are drying up, burning, flooding, and starving. Millions of species are in danger of extinction. Billions of human beings will be increasingly competing for dwindling water supplies, arable land, and livable climates.
And right here in our own country many politicians of both parties still seem to believe that ignoring climate change is somehow “better for the economy.”
Old-time science fiction writer Harlan Ellison captured our growing sense of frustration and doom when he titled one of his classic stories, ” I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream!”
This week’s $5 tasting:
Planeta Segreta Il Bianco Sicily $14
Clear yellow with greenish hints; engaging aromas of citrus and flowers and hints of peach, papaya and chamomile. Balanced and refined, with a lingering and refreshing finish.
FontanaFredda Briccotondo Piemonte Barbera ’18 Italy $15
Nose of blackberries and plums, with hints of black pepper and cinnamon. Crisp and fresh on the palate with sweet, soft tannins, silky texture, and great fruit character.
Longship Lady Wolf Malbec ’18 Washington $25
100 % malbec; unfolds with dark, enchanting notes of blackberry, grilled plum, and jammy raspberry with accents of orange peel, vanilla, and tobacco spice, finishing with balanced structure, plush texture, and a lengthy finish.