Product Code Database
Must is freshly crushed Juice (usually grape juice) that contains the skins, seeds, and stems of the fruit. The solid portion of the must is called pomace and typically makes up 7–23% of the total weight of the must. Making must is the first step in winemaking. Because of its high glucose content, typically between 10 and 15%, must is also used as a sweetener in a variety of cuisines. Unlike commercially sold grape juice, which is Filtration and Pasteurization, must is thick with particulate matter, Opacity, and comes in various shades of brown and purple. The name comes from the Latin vinum mustum; .
For the PGI variety, selected bacterial colonies or the lenta in superficie (slow surface) or lenta a truciolo (slow wood shavings) methods are used for acetification, and then there is a maturation phase. Both the acetification and the maturation take place in precious sessile oak ( Quercus petraea), chestnut, oak, mulberry, and juniper barrels. After a minimum maturation period of 60 days, a group of expert technicians will test the resulting product analytically as well as (via taste, aroma, the palette and other senses).
The two PDO traditional varieties have stricter rules. The must can only be concentrated by heating, and not by any other method. The minimum maturation period is higher at 12 years.
Currently, reduced must is used in Greek, other Balkan countries, French and Middle Eastern cookery as a syrup known as petimezi, pekmez or Pekmez. In Greece, petimezi is a basic ingredient for a must-custard known as moustalevria, and a sweet-meal known as Churchkhela, churchkhela. The Moustalevria or "must cookies" are also popular Greek cookies, which are based on a sweet dough made by kneading flour, olive oil, spice, and must. They are made in various shapes and sizes, and they are dark brown in color because of the must and the spice in them. In the wine making areas of South Africa must is used to make a sweet bun known as mosbolletjies.
The term petimezi is a Hellenized word of the Armenian/Trebizond term petmez. Petmez was a type of syrup that was made with berries of the White Mulberry tree; petmez was used in Byzantium (Trebizond was part of the Byzantine Empire), where White Mulberries grew in abundance, for their berries and for the silk worms that feed exclusively on Mulberry leaves.
Official Catholic documents define must ( mustum in Latin) precisely as "grape juice that is either fresh or preserved by methods that suspend its fermentation without altering its nature (for example, freezing)", and it excludes pasteurization grape juice.
This teaching goes back at least to Pope Julius I (337–352), who is quoted in Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica as having declared that in case of necessity, but only then, juice pressed from a grape could be used. Aquinas himself declared that it is forbidden to offer fresh must in the chalice, because this is unbecoming owing to the impurity of the must; but he added that in case of necessity it may be done. Summa Theologica, III, q. 74, art. 5, reply to objection 3.
Aquinas himself declared:
When the principal celebrant at a concelebration has permission to use mustum, a chalice of normal wine is to be prepared for the concelebrants.
Given the centrality of the celebration of the Eucharist in the life of a priest, one must proceed with great caution before admitting to Holy Orders those candidates unable to ingest alcohol without serious harm.
Attention should be paid to medical advances in the area of alcoholism and encouragement given to the production of unaltered mustum.
Must has already the species of wine, for its sweetness "Aut indicates fermentation, which is "the result of its natural heat" ( Meteor. iv); consequently this sacrament can be made from must. ... It is forbidden to offer must in the chalice, as soon as it has been squeezed from the grape, since this is unbecoming owing to the impurity of the must. But in case of necessity it may be done: for it is said by the same Pope Julius, in the passage quoted in the argument: "If necessary, let the grape be pressed into the chalice." Summa Theologica, III, q. 74, art. 5, reply to objection 3
Liturgical norms
The latest document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the matter, issued on 24 July 2003, gave the following norms, which simplify those previously in force:
The ordinary is competent to give permission for an individual priest or layperson to use mustum for the celebration of the Eucharist. Permission can be granted habitually, for as long as the situation that occasioned the granting of permission continues (e.g., the priest is an alcoholic).
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