This is the 3rd installment of this story.  The 1st one is here.

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.

Upon entering the store, my dad would walk up to the institutional green tall bench, take the paper form and a pencil that was attached to white cotton store string and then search the “board” for his selection.  There were about 50 to 60 items printed out on slide in cards that fit into a rack on the wall above the tall green bench.  Each column was labeled.  Whiskey, gin, vodka, bourbon, and of course, wine.  There were about 10 in the wine column and Dad found the corresponding number to the wine he needed to buy for the church.  He told me on the way home that they always wanted “Old Council” Muscatel in the gallon jugs.  I made a mental note to never buy that unless someone held a loaded gun to my head.

Dad took his form over to the old fellow that worked behind the counter, handed it to him and the guy disappeared behind a curtain.  He was gone for a few minutes and then with a sweep of the curtain, he appeared with the gallon jug with a finger loop at the top.  He asked my dad to present him with his personal “liquor book” that the state mandated customers had to poses when buying alcohol in Iowa. The man stamped it, dad paid and out the door we went.

I my late 40’s I still went to that old church which had gone from 3 communion services a year to monthly communion.  Now that is a leap of faith for the old “never change – stuck in a rut – German Lutheran church”!  Even at that age, I still had that taste of warm cheap wine in my minds eye and you know what, I still didn’t like it.  It only instilled the fact that the only good wine had to be cold!  Right?

Jim Albinger (Andrew’s dad) grew up in smalltown northwest Iowa in the 1950’s.  He has been writing down his experiences looking back at all that has shaped his current wine tasting hobby.  Expect to see more of Jim’s writings here at offthecork.com.

you can find the next installment of this story here

Tags: communion, Concord, lutheran, wine

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