Vin de Merde

Pissed off French winemakers will sue you if you insult their wine. Actually, you have to defame it by calling it "vin de merde.* It's defamatory in France.

It was a little rougher justice outside Golgotha about 2000 years ago. When faced with some vin de merde, Jesus wouldn't drink it:

"They wanted Jesus to drink wine mixed with something bitter. Jesus tasted it but he would not drink it."

He was killed shortly thereafter.

By the way, Bill Clinton (from the Bible Belt) made the claim that he tried pot, but didn't inhale. He ripped that straight from the Book of Mark: "Bill tried it but he would not inhale it."


_
* - "Shit wine."

Jesus the Wine Critic

Jesus was an astute wine critic. Crucified on the cross, his dying words were one final wine review for the Jerusalem Gazette:

"After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), "I thirst." A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, "It is finished," and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit." John 19:28 et seq.

Most Gospel editors didn't like the idea of Jesus' last words being a critique of wine.

Generations have been taught to believe that the "it" in, "It is finished" was a literary reference to his life on Earth. Nice allegory, but I'll apply Occam's Razor. "It" referred to the lousy wine he just drank. Back then, wine critics didn't use numbers to rate wine. Can you imagine if the Prophet's dying words were, "Hmm...I give it a 72"?

If I drank wine from an open container in the desert, I'd say, "It's shot" or "it's cooked."

"It is finished" -- same thing.

Now you know one of the many secrets.