Read a position paper where this assumption is one of the foundations of the argument, and I'm interested to see if this a commonly held position or not. Below is a direct excerpt from the article I was reading.
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Thanks you for any input
G88s
*B. The Historical Data Regarding Wine
- Unfermented wine
Because of refrigeration problems in ancient times, wine was often boiled until the liquid evaporated, leaving behind a thick, unintoxicating paste that stored well. It was somewhat similar to modern grape jelly. The people would spread it on bread like a jam, and some still do today in the Middle East.
a) Pliny the Elder--This Roman historian in his Natural Histories said such wine could last as long as ten years. He wrote of wine that had the consistency of honey.
b) Horace--This Latin poet wrote in his Odes of unintoxicating wine, that he recommended quaffing under the shade (I:18).
c) Plutarch--This Greek essayist wrote in his Moralia that filtered wine neither inflames the brain nor infects the mind and the passions, and is much more pleasant to drink. He liked the kind of wine with no alcoholic content.
d) Aristotle--This Greek philosopher spoke of wine that was so thick, it was necessary to scrape it from the skins it was stored in and to dissolve the scrapings in water."
e) Virgil--This Latin writer spoke of the necessity of boiling down wine.
f) Homer--The celebrated bard, in the ninth book of The Odyssey tells of Ulysses, who took with him in his visit to the Cyclops a goatskin of sweet, black wine that needed to be diluted with twenty parts of water before being consumed as a beverage.
g) Columella--This Latin agronomist, a contemporary of the apostles, wrote that it was common in Italy and Greece to boil wine. That would not have been done if they had wanted to preserve the alcoholic content.
h) Archbishop Potter--Archbishop Potter, born in 1674, wrote in his Grecian Antiquities wrote to boil down their wines and then drink them four years later (Edinburg, 1813, vol. 2, p. 360). He also refers to Democritus, a celebrated philosopher, and Palladius, a Greek physician, as making similar statements concerning wine at that time. These ancient authorities referred to the boiled juice of the grape as wine.*
Original source for for the article for the interested:
http://www.gty.org/resources/study-guides/40-0572/be-not-drunk-with-wine-part-1
After the arrival of Islam, Persians were unwilling to give up drinking wine. Fortunately, they didn't have to. "Burnt wine" (heated and cooled) was considered to be non-alcoholic, though you can see in Omar Khayyam that they were getting drunk on it, just not as fast. References to burnt wine may be involved here, which need not be boiled until all the alcohol goes off.
Part (f) misunderstands how Greeks drank wine, indeed. Only a Scythian willing to go crazy would drink untempered (straight) wine. Any civilized person knew you had to drink it with a certain amount of dilution. The master of the symposium's chiefest duty was to decide on whether three parts of water or five to one of wine would keep a nice buzz going for the party, depending on whether they wanted to discuss philosophy or dance on the tables.
Thus, a wine that needed to be diluted with 20 parts of water was really strong. Giving it to Polyphemus straight was guaranteed to get even someone his size drunk.
It's perfectly possible that some people preferred de-alcoholized wine. "Green wine" was grape juice that had not fermented yet, and it was drunk.
But this is the part that's baffling: "Because of refrigeration problems in ancient times ..."
Wine requires no refrigeration. This guy is too used to box wines or something. Not only does wine store well, you can put other fruits in it to preserve them, like cherries in wine. The cherries ferment, but that's a Good Thing (oh, yum, now I want some). Wine can easily last for ten years, in a cask or amphora. How does he think they get vintage wines? So part (a) sounds like no evidence at all.
Now, admittedly, poorly-made wine can be a mess in a year or two, but that's something that never fermented well to begin with. You can't judge all wine by crap wine.