Q. Can one use a wine-skin or Bota Bag Canteen, made from animal skin to carry wine and other liquids?
A. Those wine or liquid containers are mentioned repeatedly in the Talmud and Poskim.
Talmud Shabbos (110b) mentions the tying up of 'Noidos" or leather wine boots (Rashi) on Shabbos.
Thamud (Avoda Zara (29b) quotes opinions on using the ones already used by Gentiles with their non-kosher wine.
We read (from mibotadevino.com and others) that historically, the Spanish Leather Wine Bota (boot) Bag or Canteen Flask Pouch Container, also known as a wine-skin, is a soft canteen designed to carry liquids, especially wine, in the great outdoors and across long distances. They have been used by various cultures and civilizations for centuries and have an especially long history in Spain.
The skin are usually used in the traditional wine-skin is natural goat skin. Once dried they are tanned with vegetable extracts or tannins, which is shredded bark collected from trees (mimosa, pine and oak), sealing it on the inside. The resin, after being heated is applied to the interior and allowed to cool at which point the Bota is already waterproofed.
The resin is extracted from pine or juniper trees and prepared at high temperatures by the craftsman to seal the interior of the Bota.
In latex wine-skins, the resin is replaced by introducing a latex bladder that performs the same function of waterproofing.
Horav Shlomo Miller's Shlit'a opinion is that since the animal leather is treated extensively to avoid any absorbance of the liquids stored in them, it is permitted to use them as it was in ancient times.
Rabbi A. Bartfeld as revised by Horav Dovid Pam, Horav Aharon Miller and Horav Chanoch Ehrentreu Shlit'a.
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