Viticulture is one of the oldest forms of agriculture. The climate and soil of Palestine was excellently adapted to producing grapes and from the earliest times wine was a common beverage in the country. In a document dated c. 1780 B.C., so between the time of Abraham and Moses, an Egyptian man, Sinuhe, relates his adventures in Palestine. Every term used for wine in the Bible, both in the OT and the NT, is used many times in contexts that indicate wine's capacity to inebriate. The church father, Jerome, one of the great early translators of the Bible, defined one of the general Hebrew terms for wine or strong drink as omne quod inebriare potest, anything that is able to inebriate.
Fermentation takes place quickly, all the more in the Near East.
As we read in Hos. The Bible never makes a distinction between alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, warning against the one and commending the other. The happy and holy use is commended and celebrated of that very same drink the abuse of which is so severely condemned. The grape harvest was in August and September, the clusters of grapes were cut from the vine with knives and collected in baskets. Sometimes they were spread out in the sun, usually in the vineyard itself, for up to fourteen days in order to increase the sugar content of the fruit.