11. Boiling, or Inspissating
Boiling, or Inspissating By this process the water is evaporated, thus leaving so large a portion of sugar as to prevent fermentation.
Herman Boerhave, born 1668, in his Elements of Chemistry, says, “By boiling, the juice of the richest grapes loses all its aptitude for fermentation, and may afterwards be preserved for years without undergoing any further change”—Nott, London Edition, p. 81.
Says Liebig, “The property of organic substances to pass into a state of decay is annihilated in all cases by heating to the boiling point.” The grape-juice boils at 212°; but alcohol evaporates at 170°, which is 42° below the boiling point. So then, if any possible portion of alcohol was in the juice, this process would expel it. The obvious object of boiling the juice was to preserve it sweet and fit for use during the year.
Parkinson in his Theatrum Botanicum, says: “The juice or liquor pressed out of the ripe grapes is called vinum (wine). Of it is made both sapa and defrutum, in English cute, that is to say, boiled wine, the latter boiled down to the half, the former to the third part”—Bible Commentary, xxxvi. This testimony was written about a.d. 1640, centuries before there was any temperance agitation.
Archbishop Potter, born a.d. 1674, in his Grecian Antiquities, Edinburgh edition, 1813, says, vol. ii. p. 360, “The Lacedaemonians used to boil their wines upon the fire till the fifth part was consumed; then after four years were expired began to drink them.” He refers to Democritus, a celebrated philosopher, who travelled over the greater part of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and who died 361 B.C., also to Palladius, a Greek physician, as making a similar statement. These ancient authorities called the boiled juice of the grape wine, and the learned archbishop brings forward their testimony without the slightest intimation that the boiled juice was not wine in the judgment of the ancients.
Aristotle, born 384 b.c, says, “The wine of Arcadia was so thick that it was necessary to scrape it from the skin bottles in which it was contained, and to dissolve the scrapings in water”—Bible Commentary, p. 295, and Nott, London Edition, p. 80.
Columilla and other writers who were contemporary with the apostles inform us that “in Italy and Greece it was common to boil their wines”—Dr. Nott.
Some of the celebrated Opimian wine mentioned by Pliny had, in his day, two centuries after its production, the consistence of honey. Professor Donavan says, “In order to preserve their wines to these ages, the Romans concentrated the must or grape-juice, of which they were made, by evaporation, either spontaneous in the air or over a fire, and so much so as to render them thick and syrupy”—Bible Commentary, p. 295.
Horace, born 65 B.C., says “there is no wine sweeter to drink than Lesbian; that it was like nectar, and more resembled ambrosia than wine; that it was perfectly harmless, and would not produce intoxication”—Anti-Bacchus, p. 220.
Virgil, born 70 B.C., in his Georgic, lib. i. line 295, says:
“Aut dulcis musti Vulcano decoquit humorem,
Et foliis undam tepidi despumat aheni.”
Thus rendered by Dr. Joseph Trapp, of Oxford University:
“Or of sweet must boils down the luscious juice,
And skims with leaves the trembling caldron’s flood.”
More literally translated thus by Alexander: “Or with the fire boils away the moisture of the sweet wine, and with leaves scums the surge of the tepid caldron.”
W.G. Brown, who travelled extensively in Africa, Egypt, and Syria from a.d. 1792 to 1798, states that “the wines of Syria are most of them prepared by boiling immediately after they are expressed from the grape, till they are considerably reduced in quantity, when they were put into jars or large bottles and preserved for use.” He adds, “There is reason to believe that this mode of boiling was a general practice among the ancients.”
Volney, 1788, in his Travels in Syria, vol. ii. chap. 29, says: “The wines are of three sorts, the red, the white, and the yellow. The white, which are the most rare, are so bitter as to be disagreeable; the two others, on the contrary, are too sweet and sugary. This arises from their being boiled, which makes them resemble the baked wines of Provence. The general custom of the country is to reduce the must to two-thirds of its quantity.” “The most esteemed is produced from the hillside of Zouk—it is too sugary.” “Such are the wines of Lebanon, so boasted by Grecian and Roman epicures.” “It is probable that the inhabitants of Lebanon have made no change in their ancient method of making wines”—Bacchus, p. 374, note.
Dr. Bowring, in his report on the commerce of Syria, praises, as of excellent quality, a wine of Lebanon consumed in some of the convents of Lebanon, known by the name of vino d’or—golden wine. (Is this the yellow wine which Volney says is too sweet and sugary?) But the Doctor adds “that the habit of boiling wine is almost universal”—Kitto, ii. 956.
Caspar Neuman, M.D., Professor of Chemistry, Berlin, 1759, says: “It is observable that when sweet juices are boiled down to a thick consistence, they not only do not ferment in that state, but are not easily brought into fermentation when diluted with as much water as they had lost in the evaporation, or even with the very individual water that exhaled from them”—Nott, Lond. Ed., p. 81.
Adams’ Roman Antiquities, first published in Edinburgh, 1791, on the authority of Pliny and Virgil, says: “In order to make wine keep, they used to boil (deconquere) the must down to one-half, when it was called defrutum, to one-third, sapa.”
Smith’s Greek and Roman Antiquities: “A considerable quantity of must from the best and oldest vines was inspissated by boiling, being then distinguished by the Greeks under the general name Epsuma or Gleuxis, while the Latin writers have various terms, according to the extent to which the evaporation was carried; as Carenum, one-third; defrutum, one-half; and sapa, two-thirds.” Professor Anthon, in his Greek and Roman Antiquities, makes the same statement.
Cyrus Reading, in his History of Modern Wines, says: “On Mount Lebanon, at Kesroan, good wines are made, but they are for the most part vins cuit (boiled wines). The wine is preserved in jars”—Kitto, ii. 956.
Dr. A. Russell, in his Natural History of Aleppo, considers its wine (Helbon) to have been a species of sapa. He says: “The inspissated juice of the grape, sapa vina, called here dibbs, is brought to the city in skins and sold in the public markets; it has much the appearance of coarse honey, is of a sweet taste, and in great use among the people of all sorts”—Kitto, ii. 956.
Leiber, who visited Crete in 1817, says: “When the Venetians were masters of the island, great quantities of wine were produced at Rettimo and Candia, and it was made by boiling in large coppers, as I myself observed”—Nott.
Mr. Robert Alsop, a minister among the Society of Friends, in a letter to Dr. F.R. Lees in 1861, says: “The syrup of grape-juice is an article of domestic manufacture in most every house in the vine districts of the south of France. It is simply the juice of the grape boiled down to the consistence of treacle”—Bible Com., p. xxxiv.
Rev. Dr. Eli Smith, American missionary in Syria, in the Bibliotheca Sacra for November, 1846, describes the methods of making wine in Mount Lebanon as numerous, but reduces them to three classes: 1. The simple juice of the grape is fermented. 2. The juice of the grape is boiled down before fermentation. 3. The grapes are partially dried in the sun before being pressed. With characteristic candor, he states that he “had very little to do with wines all his life, and that his knowledge on the subject was very vague until he entered upon the present investigation for the purpose of writing the article.” He further as candidly confesses that the “statements contained in his article are not full in every point;” that “it was written in a country where it was very difficult to obtain authentic and exact information.” Of the vineyards, he further states that in “an unbroken space, about two miles long by half a mile wide, only a few gallons of intoxicating wine are made. The wine made is an item of no consideration; it is not the most important, but rather the least so, of all the objects for which the vine is cultivated.” He also states that “the only form in which the unfermented juice of the grape is preserved is that of dibbs, which may be called grape-molasses.” Dr. E. Smith here confirms the ancient usage of boiling the unfermented juice of the grape. The ancients called it wine; the present inhabitants call it dibbs; and Dr. E. Smith calls it grape-molasses. It is the same thing under these various designations. “A rose may smell as sweet by any other name.” The Rev. Henry Holmes, American missionary to Constantinople, in the Bibliotheca Sacra for May, 1848, gives the result of his observation. He wrote two years subsequently to Dr. Eli Smith, and has supplied what was lacking in Dr. E. Smith’s statements which were “not full on every point.” He did not rely upon information from others, but personally examined for himself, and in every case obtained exact and authentic knowledge. He says: “Simple grape-juice, without the addition of any earth to neutralize the acidity, is boiled from four to five hours, so as to reduce it one-fourth the quantity put in. After the boiling, for preserving it cool, and that it be less liable to ferment, it is put into earthen instead of wooden vessels, closely tied over with skin to exclude the air. It ordinarily has not a particle of intoxicating quality, being used freely by both Mohammedans and Christians. Some which I have had on hand for two years has undergone no change.” “The manner of making and preserving this unfermented grape-liquor seems to correspond with the recipes and descriptions of certain drinks included by some of the ancients under the appellation of wine.”
“The fabricating of an intoxicating liquor was never the chief object for which the grape was cultivated among the Jews. Joined with bread, fruits, and the olive-tree, the three might well be representatives of the productions most essential to them, at the same time that they were the most abundantly provided for the support of life.” He mentions sixteen uses of the grape, wine-making being the least important. “I have asked Christians from Diarbekir, Aintab, and other places in the interior of Asia Minor, and all concur in the same statement.”
Dr. Eli Smith, as above, testifies that “wine is not the most important, but the least, of all the objects for which the vine is cultivated.” These statements are fully confirmed by the Rev. Smylie Robson, a missionary to the Jews of Syria, who travelled extensively in the mountains in Lebanon, as may be seen by his letters from Damascus and published in the Irish Presbyterian Missionary Herald of April and May, 1845. The Rev. Dr. Jacobus, commenting on the wine made by Christ, says: “This wine was not that fermented liquor which passes now under that name. All who know of the wines then used will understand rather the unfermented juice of the grape. The present wines of Jerusalem and Lebanon, as we tasted them, were commonly boiled and sweet, without intoxicating qualities, such as we here get in liquors called wines. The boiling prevents the fermentation. Those were esteemed the best wines which were least strong.” The ancients had a motive for boiling the unfermented juice. They knew from experience that the juice, by reason of the heat of the climate and the sweetness of the grapes, would speedily turn sour. To preserve it sweet, they naturally resorted to the simple and easy method of boiling. The art of distillation was then unknown; it was not discovered till the ninth century.