Wine vs. Mead

[Thomas]

Ok, here is the purist view:

The word "wine" stems from a Phoenician word which is connected to the Semitic "yain." The Phoenicians used the word to identify the product that was produced after fermentation of grapes/juice--and only grapes.

eono, vino, vigna, vinho, vin, wein, wine--all from the same root word--yain.

The short of it: anything other than fermented grape/juice is something other than wine, and there is a technical reason for this attitude.

The grape is the only fruit that can reach ripeness with enough natural sugar and yeast that, when fermented, could yield from 7 to 12 percent alcohol by volume, without human intervention. Every other fermented product must be helped along to perform this feat.

Other fermentations took place before wine was discovered--barley beer, date palm brew and pomegranate brew, brews that used human spit to add yeast, but none are likely to have been as potent as wine, which is why early civilizations reserved wine for the ruling class and spiritual leaders. The Phoenicians built two separate societies on their wine trade--one in what is now called Lebanon, and one in what is now Tunisia (Carthage). And it was the Phoenicians who taught the Greeks about wine, and who gave Dionysius his Grandparents. Fermented grae/juice was all-important to them; it deserved its own word.