Also, many times in the Bible when it says "wine" it is translated in the original Greek or Hebrew as "juice" or "unfermented juice" or "unfermented wine." Just because it says "wine" in the English Bible does not mean it is talking about alcoholic wine necessarily
William, this was neither true, nor scientifically possible back then.
Fermentation into alcohol and gas is an automatic process in natural grape juice that is totally impossible to halt other than by boiling.
It is the same with natural apple juice, it automatically turns into hard cider.
You will probably have seen that grapes have a natural sheen on their skins when you buy them. That is a natural yeast.
As various scripture stories show, the grapes were crushed by treading them underfoot in a wine press.
The juice that runs off will then contain the yeast washed off from the skins.
Grape juice also contains a high amount of natural sugars, and the yeast reacts with that sugar and converts it into alcohol and CO2 gas.
This alcohol/CO2 fermentation is further proved by Jesus's story about not putting
new wine into
old wineskins. As the wine ferments in the skin, the CO2 gas would inflate the skin and rip it apart if it wasn't new and stretchy.
My house has a large apple tree. Early this summer I bought an apple press. From my own tree, plus that of neighbours, I collected close on 100 Kg of apples!
I pressed all those apples and just left the juice in large tubs. By using a hydrometer to measure the before and after specific gravity, I learned that after 10 days, my apple juice is now 6% alcohol.
Again, I never washed the apples, nor removed and bruised bits. In the traditional manner, the whole lot went straight in complete with bugs worms and abundant yeast etc. The resultant alcohol killed all uncleanness and left me with a lovely powerful cider.
I am now learning how to turn some of that cider into cider vinegar for cooking and pickling.
Yummy.
PS
I also brew loads of beer (from a kit) and am trying my hand at wine.
Incidentally, beer is a massively healthier drink than any soft drink.
The beer I brew is what we call a "bitter" in the UK. One kit will produce 23 Ltrs (40 pints). I only add I Kg sugar for that kit, plus about 1 teaspoon per bottle to give the final pressurisation. A percentage of that sugar is then turned into CO2 and alcohol.
1Kg sugar divided amongst 40 pints (less some turned into gas etc) is quite minimal when compared to the massive amount in soft drinks or say fresh orange juice.