Gay celebrates the "quickning tast" of a positively unforbidden fruit which kindly "thaws the frozen Blood of hoary age", and so for a while keeps death at bay rather than welcoming it into the world. Another obviously Miltonic moment comes in the middle of the poem, when Gay calls on wine to inspire him:

O thou, that first my quickned Soul engag'd,
Still with thy aid assist me, What is dark
Illumin, What is low raise and support,
That to the height of this great Argument,
Thy Universal Sway o're all the World,
In everlasting Numbers, like the Theme
I may record, and sing thy Matchless Worth. 

By "Theme" Gay means Paradise Lost itself, which is the theme for his poem in the sense that one might refer to a text set for translation as a theme. And his desire that his own poem should be "like" his theme suggests how his intention is not to mock Milton, but rather to offer, on a small scale, a tribute to Paradise Lost. Whereas Milton called on the Holy Ghost to assist him —

. . . what in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That to the highth of this great Argument
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.

— Gay more modestly invokes wine. Yet, in its own way, the subject of his poem — the contribution of wine to human life — is also truly a "great Argument". "Wine" is a complimentary poem of Miltonic supplement, not satire.

The second part of the poem, in which Gay describes a drinking party, makes this particularly clear. The whole episode is an essay in a mode Gay was to make his own, that of urban pastoral. The poet and his friends head off to a drinking den where they are met by the porter, "A Stripling, who with Scrapes and Humil Cringe, /Greets us in winning Speech and Accent Bland". They are led upstairs past the intimidating proprietor, "a Majestic Dame, whose looks denounce Command and Sov'reignty, with haughty Air,/And Studied Mien". Once they are seated, the pot-boy takes their order: 

Name, Sirs, the WINE that most invites your Tast, 
Champaign or Burgundy, or Florence pure, 
Or Hock Antique, or Lisbon New or Old,
Bourdeaux, or neat French White, or Alicant . . .

When they have been served they begin a series of toasts, initially to the leading political figures of the day (this part of the poem reads rather like a series of job applications on Gay's part), before moving on to their mistresses. Finally, in the small hours, they move out into the quietened town: 

now all Abroad
Is hush'd and silent, nor the Rumbling noise
Of Coach or Cart, or smoaky Link-Boys call
Is heard; but Universal silence Reigns: . . .
And Homeward each his Course with steady step
Unerring steer'd, of Cares and Coin bereft. 

This is a wonderfully tender imitation of the final lines of Paradise Lost, in which Adam and Eve, ejected from the garden, "hand in hand, with wand'ring steps and slow,/Through Eden took their solitary way." In contrast, the poet and his boon companions move "with steady step/Unerring" (Gay's italics touch the point of significant difference). Unlike Adam and Eve, pensive over the new, more arduous, world they must enter, Gay's drinkers are "of Cares . . . bereft". For the time being, they blithely enjoy the "Happiness Terrestrial...to mortal Man/With copious Hand by bounteous Gods bestow'd". "Wine" playfully echoes the diction of Paradise Lost, but it also sincerely celebrates the power of wine to offer us a taste, no matter how brief, of paradise regained.