lummi island wine tasting Sept 25-26, ’26
This weekend open Friday & Saturday 4-6 pm
hmmmm…might get a bit wet out theah this weekend…
ayuh, might wanna bring youh slickah just in case!
Friday Bread Pickup is Back!
Poolish Ale – the preferment here is a poolish, made with bread flour, a bit of yeast and a nice ale beer for the liquid and fermented overnight. Mixed the next day with bread flour and fresh milled whole wheat. This makes a great all around bread with a nice crisp crust. – $5/loaf
Buckwheat Walnut & Honey – another flavorful artisan bread made with a poolish, fresh milled buckwheat, and bread flour. Buckwheat has an earthy flavor that in this bread is balanced with a little honey. Some toasted walnuts add a nice crunch, going well with meats and cheeses – $5/loaf
and pastry this week...
Brioche Sugar Tarts – In France this pastry might serve as a goûter (kids’ afternoon snack). The tart is made with a rich brioche dough full of eggs and butter, rolled into a round tart and topped with more eggs, cream, butter and sugar. Great topped with fresh fruit! As always, quantities are limited, be sure to get your order in – 2/$5
This week’s wine tasting
Garzon Single Vineyard Albarino ’20 Uruguay $34
Medium-bodied white wine with dense texture, rich, elegant aromas, and succulent flavors of pineapple, lemon zest, chamomile, sea salt, stone fruits, and a bright, tangy acidity, pleasing creamy texture, and deep flavors!
Jordanov Vranec ’20 Macedonia $18
Aromas of ripe berries with notes of clove, nutmeg and cardamom; full bodied with ripe dark fruit and hints of herbs and dark chocolate on the well-structured finish.
Angeline Cab Sauv ’24 California $16
Opulent aromas of black currants, morello cherries, savory cedar and mocha with an undercurrent of petrichor. Red fruits are on full display to the taste, with bramblefruit, red plums and fresh strawberries; defined by its round edges and silky tannins.
Economics of the Heart: When Leaders Lose Their Followers
The stage is now being set for the most important American election of our lifetimes. Those of us committed to preserving American democracy are currently engaged in a battle to save it from the card-carrying foreign and domestic enemies committed to destroying it completely (pretty much every Republican in Congress.) From a broad perspective, this battle has been part of American politics for at least a hundred years, pitting the moneyed few against everyone else.
That changed for a while under FDR’s New Deal in the 30’s, which put unemployed people to work on Federal projects building infrastructure, investing in public education, creating Social Security, and stimulating that magical economic “circular flow” by which $$ circulates continuously from wages to purchases from people who grow stuff, make stuff, store stuff, and transport stuff.
We all have ongoing needs for safety, affection, food, water, shelter, and community in amounts sufficient to sustain and enrich our family and community lives. Everyone is in some sense both producer and consumer. We all need more or less the same basic things to stay alive, and we must all find employment to pay for them.
As we have mentioned before, the small class of ultra-rich business and banking guys who were responsible for kicking off the Great Depression/Crash a hundred years ago (not to mention Dubya’s crash of 2008! ) are the same ones who have been setting the stage to, more or less, change it back to the way it was in the booming profit margins of the early 20’s. The rich were very rich indeed, and the poor were stretched thin. And during the Depression, of course, finding even basic shelter and sustenance was elusive, creating substantial populations of homeless men, sometimes going door to door for scraps of food. (so my mother used to tell me)
The still-unfolding Republican “Plan” was set out in great detail by Project 2025 in its 1000-page playbook to replace American democracy with an Authoritarian police state. Our only hope for restoring Democracy and Constitutional law to our country is for enough loyal American voters to replace enough Republican Senators and Representatives in the coming election to give Congressional Democrats an ample majority in both legislative bodies in November!
lummi island wine tasting sept 18-19 ’26
This weekend open Friday & Saturday 4-6 pm
ah, a few dear faces from a few years back…
Friday Bread This Week
Sorry…our baker is away again this week…
back to regular schedule next week…!
This week’s wine tasting
Decoy Chardonnay ’23 California $16
Blended from several CA central coast vineyards; aromas of sweet mandarin orange and white peach; juicy and vibrant palate of tropical fruit flavors with a hint of oak from its time in barrel.
Angeline Cab Sauv ’24 California $16
Fruit-forward with aromas of lush cherry, cassis, rich cherry, and plum flavors with hints of vanilla and soft oak that over-deliver for the modest price.
Bodega Garzon Tannat Reserve ’18 Uruguay $16
Opaque deep, dark red; opens with enticing, delicious aromas of very ripe, dark fruit and berries stewed in their own liqueur, with lingering notes of spice, herb, and licorice on the seamless finish.
New Paintings by Anne Gibert
new paintings from Anne Gibert
Last weekend we replaced Anne Gibert paintings that have graced our
walls since Covid made public spaces implement health precautions like
masks and social distancing. Last weekend our walls were all updated
with her more recent collection of local scenery and the many critters that abound around us.
(with apologies for this hasty photo…!)
Economics of the Heart: Too Stupid to Lead or Be Followed
It is hard to comprehend how, in just two years, so much traitorous political effort has gone into reducing our United States from the most powerful nation and economy in the world to a pitiful, second-rate autocracy. In just two years of breathtaking incompetence, stupidity, cruelty, racism, lying, graft, and nonstop outright theft from the American people by a tiny handful of joyless multi-billionaires (now of course including the Tweetster) and a rapidly dwindling audience of Fox-news-addicted morons. The Fake President uses his Fake Cabinet, Fake Supreme Court, Fake Republican Party, and nonstop Fake News to make stupid people believe things are true that are not, and that things that are patently false are true.
The broad direction of all of this is to replace the elected government and Constitution of the United States with an autocratic dictatorship that will control everyone and concentrate national wealth into the pockets of a handful of joyless billionaires.
The metaphoric picture that emerges from this dystopian vision is of an impoverished America where workers earn subsistence wages (the lucky ones) or struggle to find food and shelter in a world without compassion, law, or justice. Somehow this vision is supposed to usher in a time of Christian Glory where a handful of white, billionaire, misogynistic men, acting in the name of their cruel, hateful, scheming version of the historical Jesus, take complete control of the “Seven Mountains” of social/civic/governmental organization: Education, Government, Religion, Family, Business, Media, and Entertainment. Thought and expression not specifically authorized will be monitored, limited, and punished with neither due process nor mercy.
We are now living the forty-years-in-the-works plan behind Project 2025, unleashed on the nation in 1980 by the Heritage Foundation-owned-and-operated “Reagan Presidency” and now launching the implementation phase of its wet-dream Dystopian Vision for America. A handful of white male billionaires will somehow enlist the historical Jesus to be the poster child for its massive replacement of democracy with a jack-booted, misogynist, national Christian militia (ICE is the prototype) with an open license to kill anyone for any reason.
Don’t know about you, but that sure as Hell ain’t my idea of Utopia.
This IS the new Civil War, folks, and the good guys have been losing for 40 years. A search through the ranks of contemporary Republican politicians has yet to find more than a handful who actually support the Constitution. The broad majority serve the Tweetster in deference to his demonstrated power to remove them from Congress by supporting challengers. This isn’t a government, folks; it’s a fookin’ crime family, both literally and figuratively. It would appear that if you took all the Republicans in Congress and boiled them down to their basic elements, you would find not a single ounce of Integrity.
A growing majority of American voters want their country back, and their/our voices are having impact on the national dialogue. The emerging topics of political consequence represent a long list of things American voters hate about this so-called Administration, as in “I’m mad as Hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore!”
It’s not just that the so-called “President” is a self-centered, misogynistic, lying, cruel, mean-spirited man of limited intelligence and a complete inability to tell the truth about anything, to anyone, at any time. His only documented achievements are breaking laws and causing needless suffering to his world-full of Designated Enemies. He has destroyed our economy, our global alliances, our military readiness, and our influence for good in the world.
No one knows how the coming election will turn out. But everybody knows they must vote to restore justice, the rule of law, and every citizen’s right to vote. We know that administration loyalists in Congress and across federal agencies are regularly violating their Constitutional oaths, and doing their best to rig November state elections by illegally preventing voters from registering, voting at all, or having their votes count if they vote Democratic, especially in Red states, where Republican Fraud will be rampant.
Everything is at stake. The good news is that every day more and more citizens see what is at stake and committing to taking our country back for democracy. The bad news is that elections have been heavily gerrymandered in red states and further rigged to make blue votes disappear without getting counted.
We close today with yet another poignant lyric from Leonard Cohen…
And yes it’s come to this,
it’s come to this,
and wasn’t it a long way down…
wasn’t it a strange way down…?
lummi island wine tasting sept 11-12 ’26
This weekend open Friday & Saturday 4-6 pm
Maryhill’s Stonehenge
Friday Bread This Week
Sorry…our baker is away this week… 🙁
This week’s wine tasting
Riebeek Pinotage ’21 South Africa $14
Cold soaked overnight, fermented on the lees in 80% French and 20% American oak, and blended with unoaked wine to enhance fresh fruity flavors.
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.
Stoller Helen’s Pinot Noir ’19 Oregon $50; sale $30 !!
Elegant nose of heady floral, baking spice, and red fruit, notes of earth, and black raspberry; layered and vibrant palate carries red fruit flavors and a ferrous minerality through a long finish.
New Paintings by Anne Gibert
Last weekend we took down Anne’s paintings that have graced the wine shop since, we think, Covid.
In their place we have a wide range of newer ones of all sizes and subjects we think you will enjoy!
Economics of the Heart: What Everybody Knows
A classic tune by our old friend Leonard Cohen tells a story that fits our present moment with precision.
It begins like this:
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor and the rich get rich
That’s how it goes…and Everybody knows
The “mid-term election” is what is supposed to be happening in every state across our country in November. But Everybody knows that’s not what will be happening, because for the past two years our federal government has been staffed with people specifically chosen because they are committed to the complete destruction of our Constitutional Government.
Before our eyes the last two years have unfolded on a schedule and trajectory laid out in great detail in Project 2025, which is very clear on its commitment to creating an Authoritarian State where all power is wielded by a handful of multi-billionaires whose only truly remarkable characteristics seem to be a complete lack of any semblance of empathy, honor, loyalty, kindness, or fairness.
On the contrary, we have seen over and over in the ten exhausting years of 24/7 domination of public media by a stunningly small, hateful, lying, mean-spirited, and cruel white men committed to turning America into a Christian dystopia where all wealth and authority is in their hands, voting will disappear altogether; women will become completely subordinate to husbands they don’t get to choose; and people of color will be expelled or exterminated to make room for, you know, Jesus.
Almost certainly the coming election will be rigged, as it was in 2016, 2020, and 2024. The Tweetster gets 24/7 media coverage while he dozes, lies, plays golf, and punishes everyone because he can and because he loves their pain. And pretty much every Republican goes along with its inherent racism, meanness, and cruelty.
This has all become an active Civil War, already hurting broad communities of the most vulnerable among us, including school kids, immigrants, people of color, women, the poor, handicapped, or “different” in any way from White, Racist, Christian, and worth at least $hundreds of millions.
It is a terrible thing to feel this deep shame for what our country has become along with ongoing disgust, disappointment, and grief that such mean spirits should prevail.
So…we keep fighting for this 250 yr-old American Dream we old-timers have been blessed to live.
lummi island wine tasting sept 4-5 ’26
This weekend open Friday & Saturday 4-6 pm
Dawn full moon over Orcas Island and the Alaska ferry on its way home to Bellingham..
Friday Bread This Week
Jewish Sour Rye: A traditional rye bread made with a rye starter instead of wheat for traditional rye flavors, about half rye flour, malt syrup and caraway seeds. Brushed with a cornstarch glaze before and after baking to finish – 2/$5.
Toasted Pecan & Flax Seed – Also made with a rye starter which creates a different flavor profile. The final dough is made with bread flour and fresh milled whole wheat, toasted pecans, flax seeds, and honey, for a very flavorful bread!- $5/loaf
…and pastry this week:
Traditional Croissants – Made with a levain and prefermented “old dough” – where a portion of the flour, water, salt and yeast is fermented overnight. The final dough includes more flour, butter, milk and sugar, and laminated with more butter before being cut and shaped into traditional french croissants. — 2/$5
This week’s wine tasting
L’Amauve Le Rose d’Yvonne ’24 France $14
Pale salmon-pink; nose of red berry fruits and balsamic menthol notes and fresh, thirst-quenching, fruity attack flowing into zippy aromatics.
MAN Cabernet Sauvignon ’24 South Africa $14
Consistently appealing aromas and flavors of ripe plum, red currant, violets, Italian herbs and exotic spices; vibrant flavors of dark berries, spicy plum an lingering hints of orange peel.
Pascual Toso Reserve Malbec ’22 Argentina $21
Dry, full-bodied and richly layered with aromas and flavors of ripe blackberry, sous bois, and toasty oak, with firm, fine-grained tannins that go well with savory, rich. or spicy spicy dishes. A long-time local favorite!
Wine Shop Announcement
While we have no “official” date in mind, and while we have heartily enjoyed the community that has thrived around the wine shop for the last 20 years, Pat and I are feeling our age in many ways and are now working to clear our existing inventory over the next few months. No final closing date has been set, and we will continue the Friday tastings through the end of the year.
Alas, as I have lamented to many of you over the last several years, our little business, along with scores of wineries, distributors, and retailers around the country, have taken a huge hit in the last dozen years as fallout from the “Costco laws” passed here in Washington and other wine-producing states across the country, radically changing the rules for wine and liquor sales. Between the time Prohibition ended in 1933, every manufacturer and distributor of alcoholic beverages in the country was required to charge all wholesale buyers/resellers the same wholesale price for their products. Btw, those laws were the direct result of two long-fought antitrust cases against corporate giants A&P and Standard Oil.
Costco spent many $millions lobbying state legislatures around the country to repeal those rules, and they prevailed. As a result, because of the sheer volume of business it does, Costco gets enormous wholesale price discounts, paying substantially less per bottle from every producer and distributor, and retailing it for substantially less than the “wholesale” price the rest of us pay.
Many of our longtime distributors were starved out of business, stopped their periodic wine tastings for local retailers, and stopped sending reps to the Island to pour samples for us. That did away with a lot of the fun, travel, and learning we have so enjoyed from tasting wine around our region and other parts of the world of the last 20 years, and decreased our annual sales by about 60%.
New Paintings by Anne Gibert
Due largely to Covid, our walls have been blessed with the same collection of paintings from our neighbor and long-time friend Anne Gibert for several years! Back in the early days of the wine shop, she was sometimes our only visitor, and we have enjoyed many long and meandering conversations over many years. Our current plan is to put up more recent works before opening this week!
Economics of the Heart: Money Can’t Buy Them Love
One takeaway from this Costco zeitgeist is that the concentration of more and more wealth into fewer and fewer hands is one of many direct results from the last 40 years of Republican/Heritage political ambitions. Since Heritage got Reagan to end the FCC requirement that news broadcasts must represent all points of view on any topic, Fox News and ilk have been flooding the airwaves with baseless lies about a wide range of non-topics that have turned a substantial percentage of our population into mindless idiots.
At the present time, the wealthiest 1% of US households controls nearly a third (30.9%) of the nation’s wealth (as of 2024.) Of those, the top 0.1% holds about 13.9% of the total wealth. Curiously, none of these guys comes across as a particularly happy camper. Their money buys political actions in their favor monetarily, but it appears that the small handful of them already own something like 20% of Everything Everywhere, but don’t look or sound particularly “happy” about it.
What we can be sure of is that the government these guys think they have bought does not seem particularly interested or capable of making intelligent decisions about anything. The Tweetster’s war on Iran has shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that the wanton firing of experienced and dedicated federal government employees, including senior military officers in key leadership positions, has severely damaged our nation’s strategic global options and long-time alliances with allies around the world, and pissed away the stockpile of munitions and the options they represent on tactically and strategically empty targets.
The following is offered as a bit of comic relief on the seriousness of our predicament…
2072 Granger Way