Merlot or Merlot?

My mother-in-law is a trooper. She's 88, still drives everywhere (until recently delivering for Meals on Wheels) and volunteers to take care of those less fortunate (and much younger than her) at the Senior Citizens center. She also showed up at NiagaraCOOL last year for while. The other night she took 2 of my sons and me out to dinner. It was the monthly spaghetti dinner fund raiser at the American Legion Hall ($5.00 plus $1.00 if you want dessert). We got there and she purchased the tickets. It took us almost 10 minutes to get to our seats, as half the people there knew her and she had to say "Hi" to all of them. While getting seated I decided to see if I could get some red wine from the bar. Not knowing what they might have, I queried the lady tending bar "Red Wine?"
She returned the query "Merlot?"
To which I asked "Or?"
She replied "Merlot".
I'll have 4 glasses of Merlot please."
She lined up four glasses and reached under the counter and emptied the remains of a 1.5L bottle (I missed the maker and vintage - sorry) into the first glass - just enough to fill the firat glass right to the brim. She then opened a new bottle and filled the other three to the brim.
"Let' see - 4 wines. That will be $5.00" she said. And people here start threads about the high price of wine by the glass.
I returned to the banquet room/bingo hall and found the rest of my party. I noticed that the first glass she poured was ice cold, while the other 3 were room temp. One of my sons volunteered to take the cold one.
Shortly, our dinners arrived: a basket of fresh Italian bread, a small, but complex salad (lost of different veggies, probably some from Legionaires gardens, with a creamy Italian dressing) and a large plate of spaghetti with 3 meat balls. We enjoyed our dinners and talked about things going on in the family. My mother-in-law chastised my son Tim (home on leave from Ft. Hood for 2 weeks) for getting a tattoo on his arm. Since we got there late, all the good desserts were all gone, so we all passed on the yellow cake with chocolate frosting and just finished up dinner with coffee (free). Not an evening for a foodie or a wine geek, but it was fun and satisfying. Later that night I opened a bottle of my home made '04 Merlot and found it more enjoyable.

The yellow cake with chocolate frosting probably wouldn't have gone all that well with Merlot anyway... Nice story!

Hi Howie
Great story!!

Salute

[Jenise]

Howie, I'd have probably loved that dinner for the same reason I cry at hometown parades. There's something very special about people trying real hard to do something really good and that usually shines through even cheap merlot. Thanks for the story.