Giving up the hunt for a red wine that we liked in the early 80’s was an easy thing to do. At a bar or restaurant the request for a glass of white wine was still the cool way to go as an alternative to hard liquor or beer, and it was easy to drink.

It seems like my wife and I were (are) always on a diet of some sort. Fighting weight is a fulltime job for us. I hark back to one of the first articles that we read; put out by the diet folks we were following, that alluded to the fact that “red wine” was possibly really good for you! What a revelation. But I don’t like red wine, like that communion stuff from my youth!

Growing up in a beer drinking culture, drinking meant “COLD” beer. We heard stories of the ‘old country’ where all the beer was consumed warm and we all agreed that we were glad to live in the modern world of refrigerators and ice chests. Living in rural Iowa in the late 70’s and early 80’s and you wanted a cool temperature wine to drink you ordered “a glass of white wine” or if your really wanted to sound worldly, a glass of Chablis.

Most old German families in our rural Iowa community made their own wine. Not much, but some each summer and not necessarily out of grapes. What ever was in the current batch was in a 5 gallon “Red Wing” crock, sitting on the kitchen counter, covered with a thin dish towel with little fruit lies hovering over it day and night. Who would ever drink this stuff that bugs liked that much? I was truly clueless at age 9.

I don’t completely remember when the Iowa Liquor Control Commission (ILCC) actually allowed humans to not only “see” the bottles at the state stores before they made a selection on what type of alcohol to buy, but at some point in time they actually allowed the public to walk in and pick up (touch) the individual bottles, put them into a cart and just pay for them without filling out the liquor book. They had finally moved out of prohibition forever!

That good old Lutheran Church communion wine really was quite bad. I remember my dad having to buy it for the church when he was on the church council and me tagging along to the “liquor store” in the neighboring town which was the county seat. The only place to buy any kind of liquor was at the “state liquor store” which was run by the Iowa Liquor Control Commission.

Being raised in rural Iowa from a very small community and attending the Lutheran Church, every young person at around 14 years of age went to “confirmation instruction”. It was a two year process that took away every Wednesday night and Saturday morning for the same months that regular public school met. It was a long process and the grand finale was “Confirmation Sunday” that was held in church on Palm Sunday. This was followed by our first communion on Good Friday. Oh no! Communion! Real wine! Yuck!

My dad gave me a small taste (less than an ounce) of his wine from the refrigerator that always sat in the back of the top shelf. I was an odd bottle made of heavy glass with diamond shaped points on the wide bottom. It had a long skinny neck and was closed off with a metal screw cap.