Remembering Michele Bosc
25 Jan 2019- Details
- Category: Newsletter Archives
(January 25, 2019) ... Upon learning about Michele Bosc’s death last Thursday (January 10, 2019) – I had to sit on the stairs and pause my life to think about what Michele Bosc meant to me.
That Thursday night, while my wife and I were making dinner, I received a text from a friend “Just to let you know, Michael, Michele Bosc passed away this morning. Thought you should know.” I read the text to my wife and we were both shocked into stone stillness … My wife leaned against the sink and I sat on the stairs and called my friend to find out what happened. It was a very sobering and somber moment. Unlike the death of a family member or a parent, Michele’s passing hit me in a way that’s hard to describe: this was a vibrant young woman who touched my life from the moment I started writing about wine, we became friends (not close, but enough to have a chuckle and enjoy a glass of wine together), our email exchanges were light, and while still professional we got into the personal on occasion. She was a source, an inspiration and always a welcome addition into my life and the wine world which I found myself in. Never one to hold back an opinion, yet still diplomatic enough to couch the answer in relatively positive terms; her criticisms were valid and well thought out – never just one to lash out.
Michele was instrumental in my wedding preparations at Chateau des Charmes, putting us in touch with Erik Peacock, who catered, made sure we were well taken care of and a calming influence when things looked like they might go ‘pear-shaped’. When I got engaged it was Michele who made sure the bottle of sparkling wine was at the Bed & Breakfast where I was making the proposal; she and Paul Jr. attended the pre-tasting dinner at Wellington Court we had exactly one year before we got married, and that same weekend invited us to an intimate Matt Dusk concert at the Chateau where my wife’s most embarrassing moment (to some, most romantic moment) occurred, when I stood up and told Matt that I was marrying my Miracle in one year and asked if he would play that song for us – he said he would if we would come up and dance to it. All those wonderful moments in our lives we have thanks to Michele.
Michele always made time for me, for us and for wine, and for that I will always be grateful … One of my most vivid memories is the night she invited my wife and I to dinner at their house where we broke bread with both Paul Jr. and Paul Sr. That night I got the chance to share the bottle of wine with the winemaker that turned me from casual Ontario wine drinker to fanatic about how good wine could be (1999 Estate Cabernet-Merlot, the very first wine I professionally reviewed). Together with the Pauls, we tasted that 12 year-old wine, (that showed very well) listened to Paul Sr. talk about the vintage, the wine making and how even he was surprised by its longevity … Michele made that happen. That night we also talked and told stories that bonded us together and gave us insights into life before joining the Bosc family, meeting Paul Jr. and many other aspects of her life that before that night would have been foreign territory – she was open and honest and funny … From then on she was not just Michele Bosc from Chateau des Charmes … she was just Michele – and we always knew who we were talking about when her name passed our lips, like Prince, Madonna or Shaq.
But now she is gone … no more funny banter by email, no more asking her questions only she could answer, no more inside jokes only she would get, no more visiting her at the winery. The very next day we dedicated our usual celebratory Sparkling Wine Friday on January 11 to her, opening two bottles of Chateau des Charmes sparkling wines (2009 Rose and NV Brut) – and toasting someone who was taken too soon.
Michele Bosc was a mother, a wife, a business woman, a marketer, a mentor, an inspiration, a pioneer, a rocker-chick and so much more … but to me she was my friend Michele and she will be dearly missed.
