By Paula Rook for FlyingWineWriter.com
I am in the middle of a very cold winter with one day snow last week. To be outside is frightening but the fire is so delightful, the same as the song “Let it snow”. The Christmas tree and decoration is ready on the streets and you see all the shops with party clothes and glitter. On television, they talk about Christmas dinner, together with special programs to promote the most beautiful home decoration. In contrast with this idea, 50% of the Dutch have no religion. While Jesus these days is the center of attention, we should think more about New Year as the great moment. Firework is under discussion, we spend millions to pollute the air and children are exposed to skin burn and land in the hospital.
As a rich country, drinking champagne and fine wine for these days is very important. The Dutch have specialties for New Year, such “oliebollen” with powder sugar, “kerststol” and “stofperen”. Further, on television special Christmas and new year concerts. In cities like Maastricht, is organized a Christmas fair with shops full of decoration.
Spending time in the little villages during these days is cute because the little old houses send you back in time. Everything results much more exciting because many people are free between December 24 and the first week of January; everybody in town looks different with so many activities to celebrate the end of the year.
On the other side, we are surrounded by discomfort in politics, the prime minister is being criticized for increasing taxes in energy consumption. We are doing a lot for achieving the goals CO2-emissions however, we are powerful economically we are just a little country in this battle for climate change.
The last week in December I visited in Den Bosch an expo about agro-technology. They are interested in LED light production, data analysis, and robotize. These subjects were predominant here. I thought I would hear more about pest management, plant resistance or 3d food design. These subjects are maybe for the next expo. However, food is essential for everybody, it looks like they do not realize that it is being produced and imported from countries with other rules for production, far from our standard. Control is key in our environment.
3D food printing
This year we hear about immigration regulation and climate change as the hot topic on the agenda of the European Union. The Brexit affects the price of luxe such as wine and the consumption will not increase. Many companies in wine are reorganizing and searching for activities to increases sells offline and online. Content management will be crucial in this path, creating attractive content in wine is much fun as drinking it.
I wish you all Mery Christmas and a happy new year!
Paula Rook
Reactions: paula@flyingwinewriter.com
