Approving Alcohol, Prohibiting Marijuana: An Inconsistent Position

Well, I guess we know that the pagans did indeed expose their slaves to the ravages of heatstroke and smoke inhalation so they could have sweet beverages with a hefty dose of lead and no Vitamin C, but thankfully the Scriptures contain zero evidence that the Hebrews were idiotic enough to waste precious fuel for that purpose!

Honestly, David, the simple fact of the matter is that even the passages that you cite as examples of “nonalcoholic” wine really refer to something that anyone who’s familiar with viticulture will instantly recognize as putting the must into fermentation vessels.

It is also worth noting that the reason the people of Shiraz tended to boil down their must not because they wanted to enjoy it without being fermented—even in Muslim times, Shirazi wines were uniformly alcoholic—but rather because the grape terraces were irrigated, which results in must that has a low sugar content and therefore will not produce a robust wine. Even today, significant numbers of vineyard owners in Shiraz make wine in the old style, despite the ayatollahs. Friends of mine have tried and enjoyed it.

Honestly, you seriously need to get yourself to a brewery or winery tour to learn something about this. Your “fundagelical ghetto isolation” is showing, badly. One hint; don’t mention your theories there unless you want to hear a quaint country epithet referring to something you’ll find scattered around the King Ranch.

David, as I’ve seen some of your arguments, here’s one definition that ought to whet your appetite for further learning; in viticulture and wine-making, a “sweet” wine does not mean a wine that is not fermented. It means a wine that is decidedly alcoholic, but retains some of the sugar because the yeast actually killed itself with the alcohol it produced. In other words, “sweet” wines are not only not unfermented, but can also be pretty strong.

And the way they’re produced is worth noting; like the Shirazi wines, German and Austrian dessert wines are often made from “late harvest” (Spaetlese) grapes where the water content is lower and the sugar content higher. Hence, a lot of the methods you’re citing as evidence of non-alcoholic preservation of grapes are pretty much anything but.

Again, get yourself to a winery and take a tour. They won’t force you to drink any, and the worst you’ll hear is a barnyard epithet if you mention one of your theories of non-alcoholic wine.