Bright Now Bellingham Wa

Masquerade Wine Company crosses Cascades to settle in Bellingham

In arriving at where they are today, the husband and wife owners, Bill and Jennifer Kimmerly, have a great story to tell that includes an epiphany-like $17-a-glass Bookwalter Cabernet they tasted in New Orleans. I recommend you take a few minutes and read about it on their website, masqueradewines.com.

I will give you a sneak peak of the latest chapter by letting you know they recently closed their winery in Prosser to come to Bellingham. Bill and I believe it's the first time an established Eastern Washington winery has moved its entire tasting room and production facility west of the Cascades.

The move was done for several reasons: familial (Bill is a native of Surrey, B.C., and still has family there), economic (their lease here is far more reasonable than the one in Prosser), and geographic (Bill and Jennifer note the subtle similarities between Bellingham and the Berkeley, Calif., area where they once lived).

Having tasted Masquerade's current releases, I can say that Whatcom County residents are fortunate the Kimmerlys have made this their new home. They've got some really nice wines sourced from a number of excellent Eastern Washington vineyards.

For openers, try the 2007 Effervescing Elephant Sparkling Wine (about $34). It displays fragrant aromatics of yeasty, fresh brioche and flavors of tangy, Braeburn apple.

The 2008 Viognier (about $17) superbly melds Old World and New World winemaking styles by keeping the potentially big, stone fruit flavors in check with understated nuances of walnut and amaretto. A round, viscous finish gives the wine an air of elegance.

Sourced from the Columbia Valley's Burgess Vineyard, the 2007 Syrah (about $23) begins with a splash of bright red currant before melting into more of a blueberry-like finish that includes a hint of smokiness.

Although it's been aged in oak for 26 months, the 2007 Troika Cabernet Sauvignon (about $23) is balanced by vibrant acidity that immediately jumps out and then lingers on to the finish. Red cherry and persimmon flavors lead off, with complex, spicy notes of nutmeg and cinnamon and unobtrusive tannins in the background.

Parkinson's disease prompts Bellingham writer to 'put myself out ...

Longtime Bellingham resident Rick Hermann reads from and talks about his first collection of short stories, "The Bright World of Dandelion Court," at 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 18, at Village Books, in Fairhaven.

Hermann was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1998 and has been involved in choreographer Pam Kuntz's dance courses for people living with Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis and other movement and neurological disorders, held at the Bellingham YWCA.

Question: In the introduction to your book, you provide background for most of the stories and of your early writing. What was your motivation to publish this collection?

Answer: First, I believed they are good stories, and second, I am aware that I'm not getting any younger. I've had Parkinson's disease for a third of my life, and certain pieces of my identity have been chipped away at over the past 20 years. Things I could once do are now out of reach. But I can still write. I was also encouraged to publish by a friend from a writing group I attended briefly.

Q: You also mention your editorial career in your introduction. What have been some of the careers and jobs you've had?

A: In the 1970s and early 1980s I wrote restaurant and arts reviews for the Seattle Weekly, edited for various Seattle book publishers, as well as for Harper & Row, before it became HarperCollins. For about a year we lived in a cabin near Index. I loved getting editing and indexing work from Manhattan at the local post office inside the general store in Index. I also wrote film criticism for Movietone News, a film journal published in Seattle.

I ran my own (maybe the first) vegetarian catering service in Seattle, Harvest Moon Catering. One of my early gigs was catering the first annual Starbucks staff picnic at Discovery Park. The whole company was there; fewer than 100 people.

Until I had a family, I never made much money. When our son was born, something kicked my ass into gear. We came to Bellingham in 1987, and after a rough year I got a job at SPIE. I ended up as an acquisitions editor. Lots of travel and interactions with authors in science and engineering - really smart people. I was employed there until I stopped working in "the world" in 2002.

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