I’ve heard of a lot of churches serving non-alcoholic wine or juice so that kids and recovering alcoholics can share the same “wine” as everyone else.
Is it at all common anymore for actual alcohol bearing wine to be served at church? Certain parts of the country or world? Certain denominations?
For churches that do serve actual wine, I’m curious about the source. Are there sacremental grapes from sacremental vineyards that make the wine for that purpose? Does the Vatican contract for thousands of casks from regular vineyards and bottle their own to distribute worldwide? Does the local priest pick up whatever’s on sale at the local megamart or ABC store and consecrate it himself?
Does any church use a white or blush wine? Sparkling? (ok, that may be my stupid question for the day) Has anyone een able to distinguish the particular grape varietal/brand/country or state of origin that they could then purchase off the shelf for themselves?
I’m Episcopal. We drink real wine, not grape juice. I would say it is very uncommon for non-alcoholic wine to be served in Episcopal churches. I imagine alcoholics just dip the Host in the wine, as do many others, giving them maybe a quarter milliliter of wine.
Church law, The Book of Common Prayer, has the following qualifications for the wine: The wine [should be] pure grape wine with which a little water may be mingled.
At the church I grew up in we used a really sweet port. My current church has a collection of wines stored in the pantry for use in social events and dinners. A bottle is pulled from there for the sacrament. It is always red, always from a bottle. I have heard the priest say he’d never use a box wine.
I understand there are more stipulations in the Roman and Eastern churches.
We serve both alcoholic wine and grape juice. Nothing special about either - we buy the stuff from the grocery store and liquor store. A big bottle of the equivalent of Mogen David, or close - it is pretty rude stuff, but you only need a sip apiece, and taste is not really the point.
Sacramental wine just means it’s used in the sacrament (of the Eucharist, in this case). Nothing particularly special is done to it prior to Mass (this is all Catholic). At the Mass, Catholics believe that the Consecration causes transubstantiation, which means that the Host and wine become the body and blood of Christ, literally, if spiritually.
Before the Consecration, the wine is just wine. After, it’s very, very special. The wine after the Consecration is NOT poured down the drain. The priest finishes off whatever is left after the Eucharist is distributed. The leftover Host is put in the tabernacle on the altar to be used in the next Mass.
Don’t ask what the weekday altar boys used to do with the unconsecrated wine in between the 7 and 8 AM Masses while waiting for the priest to come back. We’ll deny it to the day we die.
Jayjay is pretty much on target as applies to Episcopalians too. I’ll note that it’s always red wine, simply because it [becomes/functions as/stands for/symbolizes/other: explain] Jesus’s blood spilled for our redemption. AFAIK there is no particular requirement for a specific type, much less brand, of wine, and it’s nothing but plain ordinary wine until set apart for the function of communion; it’s not special-order from a sacramental-wine source or something.
Many Protestant churches mandate the use of grape juice rather than wine, something that only began, AFAICT, with Pasteurization and the rise of the Temperance Movement.
(Catholic) Sacramental wine tends to be very sweet and not tart at all. You can buy, here in Peru at least, “Vino de Misa” in many places, even in churches themselves.
It’ll never win any wine contests, though.
In Australia the vast bulk of the sacramental wine used in Catholic churches comes from the Sevenhill winery in South Australia, which was established by the Jesuits in the 19th century. But, as others have noted, parish priests can get their sacramental wine from any source as long as it meets the canonical requirements given in **silenus’ **link.
For general Protestant services in the US military chapels, a big tray is passed to the congregation. In the top tier, there are tiny communion cups with wine. In the lower (and larger) tier, there are tiny communion cups with grape juice.
The Spanish choice changes by region: in Navarra it’s often a local rosado (pink and a lot less harsh than our reds), in Catalonia a local moscatel (white but quite dark, and very sweet), but I’ve seen priests use whatever wine happened to be vailable, on “top of a mountain” masses (summer camps and things like that). It’s watered down when the priest pours it into the Chalice for Consecration. The laws setting a minimum drinking age are very recent; the words don’t specifically exclude sacramental wine but then, they didn’t specifically exclude parents letting their children have a sip from a beer and the courts established that this is fine - as long as it’s “a sip”, not “getting the kid drunk” (this would fall under “child abuse”, a lot more serious than the drinking law). Sacramental wine is rarely given to the community anyway, normally only the Host is given out.
Note that in Spanish “vino” refers only to grape wine, anything else is a “licor” or has its own name: asking for vino can mean nothing but grape wine.
The sacramental wine used in Catholic churches absolutely must be alcoholic, but it’s perfectly fine for a person to take communion in only one of the two species, so an alcoholic or someone who’s alcohol intolerant can take just the bread and derive the same spiritual benefit from it. And while there are, in practice, wineries that specialize in wine for use by churches, there isn’t anything fundamental to this: The churches may be in the habit of buying from those particular wineries, but other wine could be used instead. It’s probably more a matter of business arrangements than anything else.
Well, Spain has a much greater wine culture than we Peruvians.
In Peru, Communion under both species is rare and when it is done it’s usually by “dipping” the Host rahter than drink it.
During prohibition, a number of wineries produced “sacramental” wine to stay afloat. Gold Seal in upstate New York was one of the Finger Lakes wineries staying alive during this period. One of the soon-to-be executives gave a brief historical lesson during his last tour. I regret not remembering more detail but it was my third tour of the day and a lot of the little old ladies on the tour couldn’t finish their samples. Being a gentleman, I stepped; up to the plate; into the maw; threw myself into the fray; insert something else here:D. Man, I was gassed. He was using real goblets (none of the plastic urine cups) and pouring with gusto.
IN experience here in the states, Catholic Communion wine is always red, pretty sour red, too. Not really bad, but not something you’d want to dirnk on an empty stomach.
Former altar server with 16 years of service checkin’ in…
By the time I finished serving mass, I had been of legal age to drink for 5 years
Our parish in Montreal, in the 70s and 80s, used a Portuguese Muscatelle that was very sweet. I always thought that this was to allow it to stay good for weeks after opening, despite oxydation. If you try that with a cab or shiraz, it’ll go off in a day or two.
