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Friends of mine suggested that I should also present myself because, they thought, in this digitally dominated society, people would like to know who they are dealing with, especially when it comes to something as personal as wine. I thought there was something in that, so read and shudder:

I did not grow up in a world of Wein, Weib, but I did grow up with Gesang and in a church context. It was quite strict Reformed in the Achterhoek and the only time I saw these people drinking wine was in church during Holy Communion, but I found that disgusting to see because everyone drank from the same decorated silvery cup that never seemed to be empty. . Suddenly my father got a job as a steward in the Catholic south and hung up his police uniform.

I was 11 years old at the time, so I didn't experience much of the move, but suddenly I was living in a beautiful country house in nature and my father had his office in a beautiful castle. The whole atmosphere then was quite feudal. I liked that because my range suddenly became much wider and freer: suddenly in nature with space around me. And enjoy the heath with the dog. Walking for hours and neglecting homework. The reformed nature remained palpable, but gradually became milder. There were certainly more changes. Suddenly my father had a cellar full of wine that he had purchased from a well-known Tilburg importer on the advice of his employer and friends. It was under lock and key because he was suspicious. However, that bottle of wine that I occasionally stole when he had forgotten the key to the rack did not appeal to me: I found it all hard and sour, it was all those very hard Bordeauxs that “still had to mature”. So wine was a blind spot for me for a long time.

During my student days, I met a handful of nice German teachers during the holidays who lived near Freiburg, near the Kaiserstuhl. Then the first trips to local winegrowers began because I thought those mild German wines were much better than the wood-chewed wines from my father's cellar. When I was 40, I came into contact with the French winery Vicomte Bernard de Romanet and you can say that I learned quite a bit there. I got so excited that I wanted to create my own website with the expertise of a good site builder who also loved wine and really pushed me to write. I needed that pressure and it resulted in a fairly large website in which I could express my vinous egg: vinternet. See further under “Philosophy” and scroll to “History”

I had selected all the wines that appeared on the site myself and were wines that were not available in the Netherlands. So I was looking for a kind of monopoly, but with wines from producers that I met personally on my trips to France. And that love for wine has never left and has been very nice, passed on from father to daughter. That's how it seems to go.

My meals are composed as much as possible of unprocessed products from nature. And this applies to both meat/fish and vegetables and of course as many wines as possible with an eco character. And yet there are people, and I know them, who claim that wine and anything containing alcohol is harmful to your health. I have the feeling that if you think that often and hard enough, this will certainly be the case for you and I prefer to adhere to the saying of a Frenchman who said about wine: “Never drink too much, but drink enough”.

Do I regret anything? Maybe I think so now. I would have preferred to have had more talent for piano because I see too much that I cannot do. It may well be that I would not have ended up in wine. But yes, John Lennon sang it in his Beautiful Boy: "Life Is What Happens When You're Busy Making Other Plans".
So leave those regrets alone.

Henk Legters
Berkel-Enschot November 2023
Chamber of Commerce Eindhoven 67374298
VAT number NL001314246B89
06.81.92.18.63