This is the 2nd installment find the 1st one here

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!

I dreaded that day!  I still had that taste in my mind of my dad’s rusty capped bottle of “Mogan David Concord Grape Wine” in the refrigerator at the house.  How was I going to drink that in front of everybody in the church?  The guys in my class talked about it and no one either liked wine or had tasted wine and we were all apprehensive.

The evening Good Friday service came and all the members of the confirmation class lined up along the left hand isle with their parents and waited to go up to the rail and kneel and receive communion.  We had the “common cup” so the thought of the wine was bad enough and now added to it was the realization that everyone before my sip had put their lips on that same cup.  Yuck!

I took a very tiny sip and was surprised, it did not taste as bad as dad’s wine, but it was warm.  What the heck?  Warm wine!  Didn’t they know you have to keep this stuff in the refrigerator?  Well, I lived through it and all our Catholic friends gave us a hard time because they didn’t get any wine in their church.  Lucky dogs!

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, wine

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