Morning Musings

1. Jane's taking vacay today. On the ridiculous side, we're going to get a dewormer for the dog, and on the sublime side we're going kayaking on the lower Lewis River during the slack neap tide. In between, there will be the last labeling of the 2018 Syrah-Malbec blend that is going to be great.

A neap tide occurs when the moon is about half full; that means it's at right angles to the earth-sun line, and the sun and moon are NOT working together to maximize the tides. So the difference between high tide and low is less, in neap tides, and therefore there is less flow from high to low tide. The perfect time to kayak a river. And the slack tide is the period before and after high or low tide, when the water is not flowing much. (Yes, even when a tidally-influenced river is flowing downstream, it will flow upstream during high tide.)

2. Coffee! My nose, tongue, and I have traveled CoffeeWorld together, and I keep returning to the beans from Guatemala. Sure, there is excellent coffee from Mexico and Peru (my other two faves), but for me Guatemala has the perfect combination of chocolate, nuttiness, and smoothness. If you get the best quality, there's no weediness/herbal notes either. Highly recommended. Try Trailhead, or Luckman's in Woodland. I found GourmetCoffee.com to be low-priced but fairly low quality-quite weedy.

3. Story recommendation: Check out "Gondoliers" by Karen Russell, published in her book of short stories "Orange World." I love the setting (post-climate change southern Florida, which is now underwater), and the setup (four sisters operate gondolas, ferrying survivors around the various wrecked underwater buildings), though the ending is a bit ambiguous and weak for my taste.

4. Wines: I hope you are all drinking a lot of rose wines now. Tis the season!

https://www.trailheadcoffeeroasters.com/coffee/guatemala-cafe-femenino

Epona Wine joins the Porto Protocol

Epona Wine is committed to organic and other sustainable practices in bringing both classical and modern grape variety wines to discerning consumers. It recently joined the important Porto Protocol, an international effort led by famed Port producers in Portugal, committed to addressing climate change through such steps as installing solar power, conserving water, insulating winery buildings, planting trees for shade and carbon capture, sourcing fruit locally instead of bringing it in from far away, and other similar means..

"The Porto Protocol initiative was started by Taylor Fladgate, a major Port house in Portugal,” explained Kenton Erwin, Epona's CEO. “It is being joined by numerous worldwide wineries and vineyards, and even heavy industry, with the shared goal to find and implement new ways to fight climate change."

"Grapes and wine are one of only a few branded fruits--where fruit is converted into a finished, branded product, such as Epona wines. Because of this branding, the wine industry has a special connection to its consumers, which puts us winery and vineyard owners in a unique position to address climate change with individual consumers. We can be important leaders in fighting climate change. And there is an economic upside to it: There is a large and growing market for Green products.”

For more information about Epona, go to eponawine.com.

Read more about Porto Protocol here.