Reblogging for the latest addition. OP, I think you're missing context about ancient winemaking to understand why the general consensus leans heavily towards the pinecone. This said, several scholars have come forward with other theories, from fennel to artichoke, but thyrsus problem aside, there is an strong attested presence of pine product and other tree resins in ancient winemaking.
It's very late so I'll mostly be quoting exerpts from Ancient Wine The Search for the Origins of Viniculture by Patrick E. McGovern & Robert G. Mondavi:
Our Greek project, which was to focus on Bronze Age beverages and cuisine by employing sensitive scientific techniques, was my entree into better understanding ancient Greek viniculture.
My laboratory analyzed and confirmed the presence of wine inside
large storage jars, or pithoi, at Myrtos-Phournou Koryphe, which predated Minos and Ariadne by centuries. This site, excavated by Peter Warren of the University of Bristol, is an Early Bronze Age (EBA) village on the southern coast of Crete. The pithoi belong to the final destruction level of the site during the Early Minoan IIB period, ca. 2200 b.c. [...] The analyses of the Myrtos pithoi represent the earliest chemical evidence for resinated wine from ancient Greece: that is, retsina, as it is known in Greece today. Greece is the only place in the modern world that perpetuates the ancient tradition of adding tree resins to wine.
"Curt’s GC-MS analysis identified a tree resin in the cooking pot. Specific diterpenoid compounds were characteristic of pine, and the presence of benzoic acid further narrowed the possible pine species down to the Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis). Because tree resins were most commonly added to wine, the grape product in the cooking pot was most likely a resinated wine. Perhaps a mulled wine had been prepared in the vessel, as the Cretans did in the second century a.d. according to The Deipnosophists (“The Philosophers at Dinner” or “The Gastronomers”) by Athenaeus (11.783). Another ancient organic compound detected by Curt—2-octanol—has medicinal benefits, as do wine and tree resins, and was probably derived from castor beans or oil. Because the “cooking pot” lacked carbon soot on its exterior, which can be expected to have built up over time if it had been used for cooking, this vessel might have been a special container for a medicinal wine."
The next glimpse of ancient retsina in Greece, according to our Greek project analyses, comes some 500 years later at Monastiraki, about 1700 b.c., during the Protopalatial period. The site, excavated by Athanasia Kanta of the University of Rethymnon, is a MM IIB palatial center, located along the main north-south road
through the Amari valley of Crete. [...]
Another very curious component associated with the resinated
wine in this vessel was identified by Curt: an alkyl-lactone, most
likely methyl-octalactone. It is derived principally from oak
wood or resin and is referred to as whiskey or cognac lactone because the distinctive flavor and aroma of this compound are imparted to Irish whiskey and French cognac by ageing in oak barrels or adding oak chips. The concentration of this lactone is enhanced if the oak wood has been toasted, as is done in bending the staves of barrels. This is an amazing finding, because it implies that MM winemakers intentionally introduced an oak flavorant, something that we also enjoy today in a fine Cabernet or Scotch, either directly by adding chips or oak resin itself (which was also used in the tanning of leather) or indirectly by stomping out the grapes in oaken wine-presses or, more impressively, “ageing” the wine in oak barrels.
Traces of therebinth resin are also common, and according to the authors of this same book, it "was added to Neolithic wines and was one of the most widespread and popular additives to wine in the ancient world for thousands of years."
This paragrah further explains why such resins were used:
"Tree resins, including terebinth, pine, and cedar, impede the reproduction of Acetobacter and other bacteria that convert ethanol to acetic acid or vinegar, and some of the important compounds in tree resins, as well as in the strong, bitter herbs and spices of classical times, have antioxidant properties that prevent these organisms from multiplying."
There is also an article dedicated to the use of pine pitch (which is a different pine/tree product) in wine vessels: C. W. Beck and C. Borromeo, “Ancient Pine Pitch: Technological Perspectives from a Hellensitic Wreck” but that book is particularly hard to find.
It's also worth mentionning that the use of pine pitch is documented in later (Roman) sources such as Columella and Pliny, which indicates a very lasting presence of pine product in winemaking over the centuries. On the specific use of pine pitch, let me quote David L. Thurmond (From vines to wines in classical Rome. A handbook of viticulture & oenology in Rome & the Roman West)
Pitch is made by heating various tree resins, especially of evergreens, in a reductive environment, above 350ﾰC (660ﾰF) to produce a substance which is solid at normal temperatures and must therefore be heated to be applied. Equally important, heating resins to such high temperatures removes volatile constituents. It is these volatiles which are bacteriostatic and give to resinated wine (e.g., Greek retsina) its characteristic resinous flavor. Thus pitch is an excellent waterproofing substance, but it is not strongly antiseptic nor will it impart a great deal of flavor to a liquid, even one with an alcohol component. Resins, as we have seen, have been used in wine for bacteriostatic purposes and perhaps also for flavor as far back as we can trace wine.
That long history of using pine product, as well as other tree products in the processes of viticulture is why it's not far fetched that some of the ancient symbols linked to Dionysus are a reference to these elements. Dionysus isn't only the god of drunkeness, he is also the patron of the people who worked in wine-making. It is not difficult to imagine how, for someone involved in the ancient industry of wine, the smells and flavours linked to what they worked with (tree resin, tree pitch etc.) would influence how they represented the god. Especially considering just how old and long lasting this specific winemaking technology is.
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