[Avodah] Havdalah during the nine days

[Moshe Y. Gluck]

On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 03:24:14PM +0000, Kenneth Miller wrote:
: R' Eli Turkel wrote:
:> Rav Tzvi Rimon suggests using grape juice since it is only a :> minhag to
not drink grape juice during the 9 days.

: I had thought that nowadays just about everyone puts grape juice
: and wine in the same category...
----------------------

Long ago I heard a shiur from the owner/head/top honcho of some sort of
Kedem. I forget his first name, but his last name was Herzog. He said that
one of the big poskim in EY (he said the name - I forgot it) paskened that
grape juice wasn't wine, because it doesn't ferment. He went to that Posek's
house and told him that it does, indeed, ferment, and offered to prove it to
him. (Obviously, he had a vested interest in people making Kiddush on Kedem
grape juice!) His point was that halachically grape juice is exactly like
wine. Another interesting thing he said about Kedem grape juice (I don't
know if it's true for other brands) is that it's always 100% grape juice.
But if a particular batch is not sweet enough, they mix it with a grape
juice concentrate that has concentrated sugars in it to raise the brix
(sweetness value). 

KT,
MYG