Re: LS Island Land Midsummer Touch Hots, Etc LS [9 Sets]
Stephanie Dejoode
This midsummer column is free for all Callaway Climate Insights readers, and a reminder in these dog days of how fast our world is changing. For our great climate finance journalism five days a week, please subscribe.
(John Maxwell Hamilton, a former foreign correspondent who has covered the environment, is the Hopkins P. Breazeale Professor of Journalism at Louisiana State University, and a Global Fellow in the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.)
Christiane Ritter was an Austrian housewife who had no experience as an adventurer and no idea what she was getting into. Her account begins almost comically. She decides to leave her comfortable home to join her husband, Hermann, who has been in the Arctic since he was part of a scientific expedition a few years before. She imagines herself reading books, sleeping a lot, and darning socks.
Yet Ritter falls in love with these northern climes. She celebrates living close to the land and counts the small blessings of a fox that hangs around the hut and of the enameled tub the two men fish out of the Ice Fjord so she could bathe. She appreciates the cramped room that Hermann and Karl attached to the hut to give her some privacy.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Callaway Climate Insights) \u2014 Every summer brings heaps of recommendations for books to read at the beach. But what if it is too hot to go to the beach or too hot to do anything outdoors? An Arizona friend of mine says his frisky cats balk at going out to play these days. My doctor sent all his patients a note on how to avoid heatstroke.
With such thoughts on my mind as I headed out on vacation in Europe, which isn\u2019t much better when it comes to extreme heat, I packed an old book recommended long ago by a British friend. When I opened it, I found myself transported to a subzero adventure that held me spellbound.
Christiane Ritter\u2019s \u201CA Woman in the Polar Night\u201D is an autobiographical account of her year-long stay in Spitsbergen, an island in the Svalbard archipelago. The island lies between mainland Norway and the North Pole. It is one of the most northern inhabited places on the planet.
A far different reality sets in quickly and as stunningly as an arctic snowstorm. Their hut, the size of a large-ish closet, is a \u201Cbleak, square box, completely covered in black roofing felt. A few boards, nailed higgledy-piggledy over the felt, provide the only light touch in all the blackness.\u201D The stove is rickety. Soot billows out of it, making a mess of the cleaning she tries to do. If this is not enough to rattle the sensitivities of an upper middle-class woman who had enjoyed plenty of room to herself and the help of servants, a third person, Karl, lives with them. This is Hermann\u2019s friend and a fellow hunter.
They have some provisions but must rely largely on what they kill. Her first seal dinner \u2014 she was told to cook the liver first \u2014 is a trial for her. But soon such dishes are a feast. The threesome sometimes come worryingly close to running out of food. When the sun comes out in the spring, they celebrate with \u201Ca whole spoonful of honey with our coffee and cold seal.\u201D
The closest neighbor is 60 miles away. When Karl and Hermann go out to trap arctic foxes or kill food, Christiane is alone, sometimes for weeks. When snow covers their flimsy home and new storms keep coming, she must excavate the entrance each day. \u201CAt last,\u201D she writes of a foray during this grim period, \u201CI get the coal into the hut, crawling along like a dog on all fours and trailing the sleigh behind me\u2026. Outside storm and surf are pounding, and the sharp wind blows through the walls. And so it goes on for days, immutable.\u201D
And her phrases hang like paintings in her book. For example, this passage about the morning twilight: \u201CThe whole sky is deep lilac, lightening into a tender cobalt blue at the horizon, over the sea of ice. From the east a pale-yellow brightness spreads, and the frozen sea, reflecting the heavenly colours, shines like an immense opal.\u201D
A bit of mystery pervades the story and adds to its interest. Why did Hermann leave Christiane and their teenage daughter for so long? In the Polar Night, they seem to have a warm, mutually respectful relationship. Also, why didn\u2019t the talented Christiane write another book?
A little more of Hermann\u2019s story is told in another volume. Although Christiane does not say so in her account, her husband was an officer in the German merchant fleet and pressed into service as captain of a German naval vessel during the war. According to the author of \u201CThe war in North-East Greenland,\u201D he was a secret pacifist and sought to undermine Germany\u2019s effort to control weather stations in Greenland.
We know Christiane Ritter returned to Austria with a heightened sense of equanimity. When the family\u2019s estate burned to the ground, her daughter said, she took it in stride, no mourning. She died in 2000 at the age of 103.
After I read the last page of the book, I reflected on the truths that lie in that frosty polar realm today. The verities have perhaps changed. The news as I traveled home was, \u201CThe North Atlantic has warmed almost beyond the most extreme predictions of climate models.\u201D In Antarctica, currently in winter, ice formation is well below the norm. The consequence will be accelerated rising sea levels, which will consume more of the temperate beaches that sun lovers have long cherished.
We were dressed less than seriously in our swimsuits, casually covered with as little as we could get away with on this scorching hot day on the island of Hvar, often nicknamed the St. Tropez of Croatia. It takes this nickname due to its crystalline aqua waters, stunning beaches, swanky boats swaying languidly in the many harbors and beautiful bleached out stone buildings.
We were headed to the beach to cool off, but not before passing through the wine cellar of one very highly recommended producer, Ivo Duboković. His unmarked cellar in the town of Jelsa would be a welcome respite from even the short drive on this hot day. Anyhow, it was too hot to eat lunch and I was pretty sure I could get my friends to pull over the car for a glass or two of wine.
We knocked on the door and were welcomed into his peaceful, romantic wine cellar. Lit by candles, with soft classical music playing in the background (we would later learn more about this), we quietly looked around and were invited to sit so he could guide us step-by-step through his wines. Three bottles of red wine stood aside, on a candlelit table, with small decanters in front of the bottles, forewarning us that something special was about to take place.
What started for Ivo Duboković as a hobby 15 years ago has quietly morphed into 20,000 liters, mostly for the commercial market. He originally took after his father and grandfather making wine just for family and friends. In fact, it was a defining moment in his winemaking career when he decided indeed to go forth and make wine commercially.
Loads of white pepper, preserved lemon and hazelnut, which together make a really interesting combination. Left it in my glass for a while to come back to it, and found that it developed some spicy, peppery notes and aromas of baked green apple.
Interesting wine that seems altogether savory on the nose. Roasted parsnip, dried white fruits, orange peel, oregano and clove all showed up on the nose while the palate presented more nuttiness and almost a touch of salinity. Texturally rich, with a round mouthfeel that has a lemony streak of acidity which lingers on the back of the palate.
This smells so nice, with nothing heavy about it. Young red raspberry and cranberry, mineral with some light yeasty aromas that I love. Actually it smells like a freshly poured cherry lambic beer in some ways. Young, easy and softer tannins make it a very nice bottle of wine coming from the vines planted on sandy soil. All stainless steel aged.
Named for the priest of the house. Baked stone fruits with a slightly spicy cigar box aroma. The taste is not entirely congruent with the aroma, and has a warm, silky feel with mature black fruit, raisin and prune spilling over the palate. A little dirty, which gives it nice complexity and keeps it from being too girl-next-door sweet wine. Not at all cloying, in fact my favorite thing about this wine may be the mouthfeel, which is marked by the heat of a slightly alcoholic finish.
We also tasted a tank sample of ros, an unnamed version made of plavac mali, but not macerated at all, which gave it the most amazing subtlety, and beautiful aromas of tangerine, green apple and garden mint. Reminiscent of my favorite ros from Provence, France. Beautiful and delicate, though unfortunately going to be released into the market in September which may prove to be a strange time for the first presentation of a new ros. Great as an aperitif or for warm weather lunches. Gorgeous.
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