[Avodah] Wine

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Oct 08, 2024 at 07:46:12PM -0400, Joel Rich via Avodah wrote:
> Some of you may know that one of my pet peeves was that I was taught that
> the reason that wine was watered down in talmudic times was because wine
> was much stronger back in the day. However, I have since found out that
> wine will not naturally ferment to more than 18% alcohol content...

Before controlled environments and specially bred yeast, more like
12-14%, which is why that's the norm for both wine and beer.

RSM z"l made that point on-list.

It seems they couldn't make wine storage vessels that would prevent
water from evaporating away. So, they ended up with something syrupy,
which then needed to be reconstituted into a normal liquid.

RSM noted that alcohol evaporates more readily than water. This is the
whole reason distilling works -- you head the liquid up to somewhere
between 173 and 212 deg F, so that the alcohol avaporates away leaving
the water behind. And then you cool the alcohol vaper and catch the
liquid into a second vessel.

So, their alcohol level was significantly lower than 12% when first poured
from the amphora. And then they diluted the result at around 1:4! So,
we're talking something below 3% to 4% alcohol.

> high an alcohol content if you were going to be drinking a lot. It was also
> conjectured that they wanted to treat either their water or wine to make
> them more palatable...

Well, we know from Mishlei Proverbs 9:2,5 and Yeshaiah 65:11 that spicing
wine was common enough during bayis rishon (a far cry from Chazal's day)
for it to have its own name "maschah" (with a samech).

> Note that for some of the reasons it seems we might have been affected by
> surrounding cultures (I wonder who invented hseiba?) Any thoughts
> appreciated

Heseibah is outright described as imitating the nobility of their day.

For that matter, that aristocracy often held symposia - long banquets
in which they would recline, with philosophy discussions between
courses. There would even be a final philosophy presentation after the
meal, or epi-koman (epi is "outside" or "beyond").

The whole seder format follows a Greek pattern!

GCT!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                     Life is complex.
http://www.aishdas.org/asp           Decisions are complex.
Author: Widen Your Tent                  The Torah is complex.
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                              - R' Binyamin Hecht