I love sitting around with my mom and aunt, swapping old stories. Many of them I have heard repeatedly, but I don’t mind hearing them again – because the stories bring back the childhood I can’t remember on my own – AND bring me closer to my loved ones who love so far away.

Aunt Heidi has so many to choose from when she gets going on her deceased husband, Bill. Uncle Bill was a wizenheimer of the tallest order. The Uncle Bill story she told me recently was one I actually had NOT heard, but ran right up the charts to an all-time fave.

Apparently before this latest make-it-yourself wine-making craze, there was another make-it-yourself wine-making craze back in the 70’s. Uncle Bill went NUTS. Bought everything. Told everyone they were getting wine for Christmas. Watch out, Galio Wines – Uncle Bill was about to dominate the table wine market.

He pulled out all the supplies, he set them up, he mixed the juices, and he covered it all with cheese cloth. Enter the fruit flies. And then enter Aunt Heidi, who absolutely refused have said fruit flies in HER house.

So ended the long and illustrious wine-making career of Uncle Bill.

But, what was he to do? He promised the whole family homemade wine for Christmas! Enter his sneaky little brain! His mother enjoyed Mogan David wine, Heidi’s mother (my Oma, for those keeping track) enjoyed Rheinskeller. So Uncle Bill tootled off to the store and bought several bottles of each, poured them into his homemade wine bottles and called it a day.

Enter Christmas and his mother’s house. Pop goes the wine, and out flowed the praise for her boy’s skill and prowess as the best winemaker in the land. In the county, AT LEAST. It’s wonderful this, it’s lovely that! All those fruit flavors! Oh, my boy, Bill! He’s a winemaker!

Then they go to my side of the family.

Pop goes the cork and at the first sip, my Oma immediately exclaims, “Oh! It’s Rheinskeller!”

What can I say? I come from a family of winos.

What memorable stories has your family shared with you?

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