Feast of Wine

The Feast of Wine (), also called the Festival of New Wine, is a Jewish festival described in the Qumran Temple Scroll (11Q19), an ancient Jewish text discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls that sets out regulations and rites for an idealized Temple in Jerusalem. The festival celebrates the year's new wine on the third day of the fifth Hebrew month, Av, fifty days after the Feast of Weeks ()—the festival "of the first fruits of the wheat harvest" (). On this day, an offering of new wine was presented from each of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, after which members of the community were permitted to drink the new wine. Reeves regards the festival as coinciding with an earlier method of reckoning the first day of the first month. The festival is not mentioned in the canonical texts of the Hebrew Bible, the Babylonian Talmud, or the Jerusalem Talmud, and was unknown to modern scholarship before the discovery of the Temple Scroll in 1956. The scroll also describes a festival involving the offering of new olive oil, conventionally called the Festival of Oil (). According to Hebrew Bible scholar Marvin A. Sweeney, the wine festival was one of three () festivals observed by the Essenes, the early Jewish community associated with Qumran.

Excerpt There is a Noah story, expounding on his vine aspect, known from its allusions in the Tanakh after the Flood story. And in the seventh week, in its first year, in this jubilee, Noah planted grape-vines on the mountain where the ark came to rest, whose name was Lubar, one of the mountains of Ararat. They bore fruit in the fourth year,13 and he protected their fruit and harvested it the same year in the seventh month. And he made wine from it, and placed it in a vessel, and kept it until the fifth year, until the first day, the new moon of the first month. And he observed that day a joyful festival,14 and prepared a burnt-offering for the Lord—one young bull, one ram, and seven lambs each a year old—and one goat kid, that he might make atonement with it for himself and for his sons. And he prepared the goat kid first, and placed some of its blood upon the flesh that (was on) the altar which he had built, and all the fat he offered upon the altar, the place where he prepare the burnt-offering—the young bull, the ram, and the lambs. He (then) offered all their flesh upon the altar. And he placed all their sacrifices mingled with oil upon it, and then sprinkled the wine upon the fire which he had placed upon the altar, and (having) placed incense upon the altar, he offered a pleasing fragrance which would be acceptable to the Lord his God. And he rejoiced and drank the (new) wine, he and his sons with joy. (Jub. vii 1–6)

Reeves says see Yadin, vol. I, p. 110, n. 19

Comparative The Ugaritic Vintage Rites (KTU 1.41 // 1.87 COS 1.95) describe the most extensive Ugaritic ritual we know. It may have been a new year event.Aula Orientalis 5 1987 p 257 G del Olmo Lete, liturgia ugaritica del primer mes KTU 1.41 // 1.87 Twice-attested, it was likely canon. It mentions the new moon, grape clusters, birds, bathing, clapping, the Lady of the Temples, and other gods and goddesses.§Auth Baruch Levine

Papyrus Amherst 63 is another New Year-emphasizing text.

Feast of Wine

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