Before I became a Christian in 1985 one of my hobbies was making wine (and drinking it.) After I became a Christian, I wondered if some might feel this was inappropriate - so I stopped making wine ;-)

During the years leading up to 1985 we lived in a modern detached house way out in the sticks, in Southminster - rural Essex. Wine making was an enjoyable and sociable hobby at that time for me. The family came with me when I went fruit picking and when I spent time in the kitchen preparing the fruit or whatever part of the process I was at – the family were there with me too. We had three small children who loved to sit on the breakfast bar that separated the kitchen from the dining room and watch (and help) their daddy mixing water, fruit and sugar and filling large jars or decanting the finished mixture into clean empty bottles, adding a cork and a home-made label to complete the product - Malc's home made wine.

I tried most fruits in an attempt to produce good white, red or rose wines. The Reds were the most difficult to get right and the Whites were OK (although not very exciting) but the Rosé – oh, the Rosé. I used soft summer fruits for my Rosé – rasberries, loganberries, strawberries. And though I say it myself – the Rosé was superb!

So as I became more experienced and my skills improved I experimented with other fruits to achieve other wines.

Rhubarb! I had not tried rhubarb - and apparently, it could produce a sparkling wine – almost a champagne-like delight. So, rhubarb it would be.

Although the basic recipe was similar to other wines I had made the 'must' * was a little volatile and whereas previous recipes had yielded 6 bottles – with the amount that was lost in the process I finished with just two bottles. Ah, well. I would put them away and see how they turned out later.

You'll recall I became a Christian about this time and we were attending a small pentecostal church in a town just a few miles from where we lived. We had not been attending that little church very long when the pastor and his wife invited the whole family for Sunday lunch.

We were delighted to be invited and I thought as a token of my appreciation (or maybe it was just a throw over from my days before I was a Christian) I decided we should take a small gift with us and I thought of the Rhubarb wine – he shall have one of those, I thought.

So that Sunday we enjoyed a pleasant lunch at the pastor's house and he seemed really pleased when I handed him a bottle of my own home made wine.

“I'll save that for a special occasion.” He said.