[Question:]{.underline} Is altar wine addictive, and if so, how could Christ have used it?
[Answer:]{.underline} All alcoholic beverages are addictive in certain persons, namely in alcoholics, but not in others. Wine is no exception to this. Yet it is certainly true that grape wine is natural and does have some special qualities, recalled even by Sacred Scripture. It certainly does rejoice the heart of man, as the Psalms say, and it does soothe nerves in those who do not have the predisposition to become alcoholics.
However, with respect to its alcohol content, wine is not any different from other alcoholic beverages and is easily prone to abuse. Wine-drinking persons can certainly become alcoholics, and frequently do. It is probably true that it is not so frequently abused as whiskey and other spirits and stronger drinks that alcoholics indulge in. Nevertheless, it must be counted with those fermented drinks that can ruin a person.
Our Lord is not responsible for the abuse of this good substance that God is His goodness provided for us and that Our Divine Savior elevated to become the species under which he would give us His Precious Blood. Nevertheless, the wine that was drunk in the time of Our Lord was much weaker than modern-day wine---probably only 7-8 %, which is only half the strength of modern day wine. Also, the Jews, like all peoples of antiquity, mixed water with their wine in large quantities. Consequently, it was less open to abuse and to cause alcoholism.
Present day sacramental wine is 12-18 %, which higher concentration of alcohol gives the best natural preservation from corruption. The main difference between sacramental wine and table wine is that sacramental wine must be entirely pure from any additives or preservatives and must not contain any alcohol or other product that is not fermented from or fruit of the vine. This is what the Church has to say: “In order that wine may be valid and licit matter for consecration, it must be wine, which has been pressed from fully ripened grapes, which has fermented, which has been purified of sediment or dregs, which has a vinous alcoholic content of around 12 %, which has not been adulterated by the addition of any non-vinous substance, which is neither growing nor grown bad by acescence or putrefaction” (Matters Liturgical, 10^th^ edition, 1959, pp. 327-328). Either red or white wine may be used for altar wine.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.