James M. “Jim” Gabler, a Baltimore lawyer and author who wrote widely on Thomas Jefferson’s lust for wine, died June 29 from complications of a stroke at his Jupiter, Florida, home. The former Ruxton resident was 93.

“Jim was the combination of a wine enthusiast and scholar who made a number of outstanding contributions through his writing,” said Robert M. Parker Jr., the noted American wine critic and author.

“I always enjoyed his company and for a guy who was so well-educated and refined, he was down-to-earth, had no pretense, and was straight-forward,” Mr. Parker said. “And he played a major role in Baltimore’s cultural vineyard.”

Retired Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Hilary D. Caplan was a longtime friend. “He was quite a man,” Judge Caplan said. “He was one of the most talented lawyers I’ve ever known. His wine books were excellent and he was simply a man who loved life.”

James Miller Gabler, son of Walter Gabler, a Baltimore & Ohio Railroad worker, and Emma Gabler, a homemaker, was born and raised in Baltimore, where he graduated from the old Southern High School and was a champion state wrestler.

He was a cum laude graduate with a degree in economics from Washington & Lee University in Virginia, where he also obtained his law degree.

Mr. Gabler then spent two years in the Army as a finance officer in Korea. After being discharged, he began his legal career in the mid-1950s with the Baltimore law firm of Smith, Somerville & Case, eventually becoming a partner and a member of its executive committee.

In 1984, he left and established his own law firm, Sandbower, Gabler & O’Shaughnessy.

“He was an excellent lawyer and was a plaintiffs lawyer rather than defense counsel,” Judge Caplan said.

Mr. Gabler’s legal expertise was personal injury law. He was repeatedly voted as one of the best lawyers in America by his peers, family members said.

He was a member of the Maryland and District of Columbia bars, the American Bar Association, Maryland State Bar Association and the Baltimore City Bar Association. He was also a frequent lecturer at Maryland continuing legal education programs.

“But wine was his main interest in life,” Judge Caplan said. “Here was a man who had an extensive wine collection and who lived life to the fullest and enjoyed people.”

His first book, “Wine Into Words: A History and Bibliography of Wine Books in the English Language,” was published in 1984, but in order to do so, Mr. Gabler established Bacchus Press in Baltimore.

His second book, published in 1987 by his imprint was “How To be A Wine Expert.”

In the 1970s, Mr. Gabler became fascinated with Thomas Jefferson and the “drinking preferences of the Founding Fathers,” The Baltimore Sun reported in a 1995 article.

Mr. Gabler’s curiosity about Jefferson and his love for wine “led him to Jefferson’s papers in the Enoch Pratt Free Library,” according to The Sun account, where the idea for a book about the president’s fondness for wine began to ferment.

The illness and ultimate death of his wife, JoAnn Gabler, put the project on hold, and it wasn’t until 1990, that he resumed work on the project.

The culmination of his research was “Passions: The Wines and Travels of Thomas Jefferson,” published in 1995, which received numerous accolades.

Retiring from his law practice in 1999, he wrote a second edition of “Wine into Words,” published in 2004, and two years later, wrote “An Evening with Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson: Dinner, Wine, and Conversation,” which he followed with “Dine with Thomas Jefferson and Fascinating Guests.”

During his two terms in office, Mr. Gabler writes that Jefferson managed not only to travel to France, Germany and Italy visiting vineyards, many of which are still extant today, but also stocked the White House cellars, at his own expense, with more than 20,000 bottles of wine in order to slack his thirst and entertain his guests.

“He was the greatest connoisseur and wine enthusiast of the 18th century,” Mr. Gabler told The Sun.

A daily wine drinker, Jefferson was known to consume three or four glasses of wine a night.

Mr. Gabler wrote that Jefferson loved indulging his love of wine in letters to friends which two centuries later, could have been written by Mr. Parker in his wine letter.

Speaking of his adoration of Hermitage’s red wine, Jefferson wrote of its “full body, dark purple color … exquisite flavor and perfume, which is … compared to that of the raspberry.”

The former resident of Ruxton moved to Palm Beach, Florida, in 2005 and wrote two novels, “God’s Devil” and “The Secret Formula,” and two plays, “Franklin and Jefferson: Sex, Politics and the American Revolution” and “Benjamin Franklin’s Farewell Paris Dinner.”

Mr. Gabler traveled throughout the country lecturing on Jefferson and wine.

He was a co-founder and president of the Palm Beach Writer’s Group and was a member of The Society of Four Arts, the Old Guard Society and the Pundits.

He was a former president and member of the Baltimore branch of the International Wine & Food Society.

He enjoyed reading, travel, hiking, and playing bridge, and “anything associated with wine and food, especially dining with friends,” he wrote in a biographical sketch.

“I hope that Jim is in that great vineyard in the sky enjoying a glass of wine or two with Thomas Jefferson,” Mr. Parker said.

“Jim didn’t want a church service so there will be a gathering of family and friends at Monticello to drink some good wine,” said his wife of 33 years, Anita Baldi Ward, a former Baltimore developer.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Gabler is survived by a daughter, Morgan Gabler Youngston, of Atlanta; a stepdaughter, Tricia Ward Holloway, of Wellington, Florida; and two grandchildren.