Karin Leeuwenhoek is a theologian, vinologist and communications scholar. She has ninety Italian olive trees, but mostly loves wine - and philosophising about it. See also her wine blog vinoblogy.co.uk She writes a column in each edition of Winelife Magazine.
Image: Unsplash
A Japanese sushi chef told me this summer that the weather in the Netherlands had been so much better for him since he had been living here. Beforehand, he had read that it is often wet and windy in Amsterdam. At the thought of such grey and depressing weather, he almost prepared himself for harakiri with one of his impressive sushi knives. Fortunately, he thought it was all far better than expected, with the weather exceeding his expectations. To which bar guests chided him with a nice Dutch accent: ‘Ah, just wait, because normally it is really much worse. Always rain.’
I feel compelled to set the record straight in this merriest wine magazine in the Netherlands about those somewhat overly pessimistic assumptions and baker's talk about our weather. The first fact: 93% of the time it is simply dry in our country! Second: our country gets about 875 millimetres of rain per year, less than the Bordeaux region. In Tokyo or Bangkok, it falls almost double that: 1,500 millimetres. And how about mild Miami with 1,700 and those cosy Bahamas with 1,400 millimetres, bam! Not to mention the wettest places on earth, like India and Colombia, with 12,000 to 13,000 millimetres annually. And who thought Hawaii was so lovely? There is a place there where it rains 350 days a year, adding up to 10,000 millimetres.
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