Danes in the World

Welcome! I’m busy building my new site.  Most of these pages are now available, others need additional work.

 

 

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North Carolina: People and Environments, 2nd Edition.

I am finally able to add this awesome book to my web site; whatever you wish to know about our beloved state – this is where you will find it, though the most recent census data is 2000, so a bit dated. But the details of all of our diversity in weather and climate, in water resources, and environmental quality and land conservation, as well as our varied economy,  and rather incredible diversity of people in their urban and rural settings from the coast to the mountains – it is all here!! Have a look. Pages provided by the Department of Geography and Planning at Appalachian State University also include review by leading North Carolinians, newspapers and professional journals.

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Around the World in 60 Days, Volume II

Please note my comments below Volume I.
And you might note also that this volume (II) is now published and available in full, right here!

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The Wines of Madeira

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Dear friends, here is my long-awaited photo book of Street Art of Montevideo! This is the result of my work on this subject during our stay in Uruguay late Winter, 2016. This 140 mb PDF file is a scaled-down, 200-dpi version of the book published some time ago through IPhoto Projects. It is actually available in its original book format at that site, but at a rather hefty $186.00. Hope you enjoy this version. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1VNrQQYoMlUNpXw3fk6CVmRKBhjbuOwJ_

Please note that this volume carries well over 100 photos of street art, some fold-out sized. However this particular edition is in PDF format and has consequently suffered in resolution and placement.

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Around the World in 60 Days – Ane and Ole Gade in Winter, 2015, Volume I

Hit the image above and you are returned to Bookemon.com for a look at this volume. Then hit the book cover for a full screen view, then simply turn them by the bottom indicator. DO NOT hit the Read button on the initial Bookemon page.

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Why this blog on wines and vineyards?
http://oleswinesandvineyards.blogspot.com/2013/01/why-this-blog-on-wines-and-vineyards.html

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Ecuadorians Encounter Obamaland
http://aneoleintheworld.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_22.html

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Montevideo Life in 2016 – Daily Musings From a Six Week Stay in 2016 | Book 631986 – Bookemon
https://www.bookemon.com/book-profile/montevideo-life-in-2016/631986

How we came to love fine wines.

Open the door – come on in! Alsatian wine farm (1984)

Please begin here: folks, this is a work in progress. (It will be easier reading should you ignore the inserts on your initial pass through); as changes and as new postings occur I shall place the date here – today is 11/15/15; do note also that my page on Madeira wines has been updated following our recent trip to the island (Oct., 2015). Get to the Madeira story by touching Madeira in column next to this introduction. We are awaiting the final preparation of a few more illustrations to set up a new page on Visiting the Vineyards of France. and a second on Visiting the Vineyards of Italy, our in-field experiences in Spain, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, and Central Europe are completed with published results lying in wait at the moment. To see the images included herewith in all of their glory, click on one and they will appear in enlarged format, separately

My wife, Ane, and I have been deeply involved in wine tastings, at whatever level you can imagine, for over four decades. Used to be that I taught the Geography of Wine at my home Department of Geography and Planning, Appalachian State University. Ane and I subsequently gave week long seminars in ‘wines and food choices’ at the University’s Broyhill Center. We then became part of a small wine and food group that for several decades have indulged in tasting a flight of wines in one month for then to savor the same selection at a dinner of courses of food selected at the prior month’s tasting. As experienced foreign area tour planners and directors we then conducted a three week wine exploration of France with visits and tastings at leading purveyors of wine in Champagne, Alsace, Burgundy,

Ole is here trying his damnedest  to appreciate the intricacies of  difference between a 1927  Bastardo and a 1907 Malvazia  at the Pereira D’Oliveira Vinhos  in October, 2012. If you are  not heavy into madeira fortified wines, do not try this! At any rate should you wish to buy a bottle of each for this test then know that the cost will be $565.00. Fortunately, Ane and I are  generally treated as visiting  wine educators and served carte  blanche (Please note that  clicking the picture will result  in the opening of a pic page that will show all pictures in enlarged  formats)

Beaujolais, Rhone Valley, and Burgundy, and then, a few years later, we went to Italy (Chianti, Montalcino, Montepulciano, and Puglia). In other years the two of us have traveled to wineries and vineyards throughout Europe (Portugal to Hungary and England to Greece), as well as throughout North America, and to many places in Australia, New Zealand, and Chile. We recently enjoyed a four week tour exploring the wine delights of Castilian Spain, the Portuguese port wine region, and the Island of Madeira.
It is perhaps also notable that Ane and I planted an experimental vineyard on our Boone south facing property slopes in the 1980’s. This is located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina at about 3,200 feet. I had earlier compared the local climate with that of Beaune, France (Burgundy), and had found them quite similar, both being about 2400 in measured degree-days. We discontinued this effort some fifteen years later following Ane’s persistent complaint that there was just not enough production from the few vinefera, but mostly American hybrids, we had planted to sustain yearly bottling. Well, there were microclimate problems of significance, as well, particularly relating to the incidence of rainfall and humidity. In addition we had periodic difficulties with Japanese Beetles, a voracious consumer of vinifera leaves.Global warming skeptics can take lessons from recent decades of production experiences of vineyards the world over. I shall have a separate page on the whys and wherefores of our local mountain area wine growing situation later. Let it be said that there are significant attempts to bring about a commercial wine industry here in our locality. Issues aplenty.
What is also notable is that Ane, the wine chemist, has been making wines for home use for nearly 50 years. I remember well the riddle rack for turning her champagne (my job), and the primitive estufa, with a lamp, that she built to maintain the needed high temperature for over a year to allow the maderization of her unique Madeiran wine. We are now consuming the last bottles of her 1992 Sercial. Her 1982 Tawny Port is still in stock, and sherries are made monthly. This is in addition to a wider variety of table wines, both red and white that she has been making over the years. Ane will be encouraged, on this blog, to reveal her secrets. They might remove some of the veil of mystery attached to notion of terroir and the locality romance associated with most of the traditional wines of the world.

Danish by birth; migrated and settled initially with family in Valdosta; Georgia in summer of 1951; graduated two years early from high school and joined the USMC when turned 17 *July 22, 1953); served two hitches; received bachelors degree in economics from Florida State University in 1962, masters in geography in 1964; taught at Michigan Tech for three years; received PhD in Geography from Michigan State University; went to work for Appalachian State University in 1970; retired from same in 2003; presently researching and writing on a variety of topics; doing a lot of world travel with Ane, wife of 57 years.