In Memory Of A Great Man

I just found out that Jacques Recht, a wonderful and knowledgeable man, just passed away.

Jim and I were lucky enough to meet this man and form a friendship through our wine group. It was always interesting to hear his thoughts on wines and he was always willing to sit and chat with you about the many different things about wine.

Jacques, a Belgian oenologist, was sailing around the world on a catamaran he had built when he ventured into the Chesapeake Bay and had a chance meeting in 1980 with Carl Flemer, the owner of a large commercial nursery and vineyards on the Northern Neck. As it happened, Flemer was in need of a winemaker to launch his Ingleside Vineyards. Jacques agreed to give him a hand, at least for a few weeks. Thos few weeks turned into 25 years, during which Recht moved from Ingleside's winemaker to wine making guru for the entire state. He has been a consultant to numerous wineries, including Oasis, Oakencroft and Tarara. For the past several years he has been the winemaker for a small winery, Athena Vineyards, which is near Wicomico Church on the Northern Neck.

Our sympathy and hear felt wishes go out to Lillian, his lovely wife, and all his family. He will be greatly missed. Farewell Jacques, you will be missed.

-Michelle

Good Friends, Good Wine, And Good Food.

Normally our weekends are a time for Jim to just relax. And we really don't do much of anything. This weekend, however, was a bit different.

So Saturday we drove the 2.5 hours to Ingleside Vineyards. Of course we did do a tasting. Hey they have new things for tasting. Plus we stayed and chatted with our friends and drank a glass or two of Rosato. We were actually on a mission to get a case of Rosato di Sangiovese, but that wasn't our only reason we were there.

No we were also there for a meeting with our wine group. Something we had not done since we left the area. And it felt like coming home. We fell into the same old jokes with some of our friends and many people acted as if we'd been gone for a short amount of time. Not the nearly twelve months that we had been gone.

The first picture is of our friends, Bill and Linda. Just two of my favorite people.

The wine tasting with our group was seven red wines. The theme, there's always a theme, was big bold reds. It's been a while since I've had a lot of reds. I'm a bit out of practice.

Jim, being the smarty pants he is, told the group he was just there to drink. So he took no notes on the wines. I quite frankly am out of practice and really couldn't pick out the subtleties of the wines.

After the wine tasting we broke into two different groups. Some went to The Moorings while others went to Good Eats.

Linda, Neil, Phil, Andrea, Debbie, Melanie, Linda, Jim and I all went to Good Eats. We had three bottles of wine at the table.

Jim and I both had the blackened prime rib. Which was wonderful!

We spent a few hours there. The staff was wonderful. The food fantastic! The company even better.