The Quran does not teach that every drink called "wine" is evil in every possible form. It forbids the intoxicating wine of this life because of its real harms, while describing a drink of Paradise that gives delight without intoxication, filth, or moral damage.
The argument at its strongest
The objection is not silly. It says: Islam calls alcohol an evil and makes intoxicants haram, yet the Quran promises believers "rivers of wine" in Paradise. If wine is intrinsically corrupting, why would God reward the righteous with it? And if it is not intrinsically corrupting, was the earthly ban merely arbitrary?
That is the sharpest version of the argument. It assumes, however, that the wine of this world and the wine of Paradise are the same thing in the morally relevant sense. The Quran itself denies that assumption.
What the Quran actually condemns
The Quran's prohibition is tied to intoxication and its consequences: the loss of reason, the stirring of enmity, and the obstruction of worship.
"O you who believe, intoxicants, gambling, idols, and divining arrows are only filth from the work of Satan, so avoid it that you may succeed. Satan only wants to cause between you enmity and hatred through intoxicants and gambling, and to avert you from the remembrance of Allah and from prayer. So will you not desist?"
Quran 5:90-91
The moral center of the ruling is not that a certain color, taste, or liquid category is metaphysically wicked. The harm is intoxication and what follows from it. The Prophet (PBUH) stated the legal principle plainly:
"Every intoxicant is khamr, and every khamr is unlawful."
Sahih Muslim
So Islamic law forbids what intoxicates. It protects the mind, dignity, family, society, and prayer. This is why even small amounts of an intoxicant are unlawful: the door is closed before the harm takes over.
The wine of Paradise is not the wine of drunkenness
When the Quran mentions wine in Paradise, it also describes it as free of the very defects for which earthly wine is forbidden.
"The description of Paradise which the righteous are promised: therein are rivers of water unaltered, rivers of milk whose taste does not change, rivers of wine delicious to the drinkers, and rivers of purified honey..."
Quran 47:15
Another passage makes the difference explicit:
"No bad effect is there in it, nor from it will they be intoxicated."
Quran 37:47
And again:
"They will not get headache from it, nor will they be intoxicated."
Quran 56:19
So the Quran is not saying, "You may not drink intoxicating wine now, but you will be rewarded with intoxication later." It is saying that Paradise contains a drink with the pleasure and beauty people associate with wine, but without its corruption: no drunkenness, no vomiting, no addiction, no violence, no shame, no neglect of prayer, no ruined home.
What this does and does not prove
The objection would work only if the same harmful property existed in both cases. But the Quran removes that property. A thing can share a name while differing in reality, especially when Paradise is being described through words human beings can understand. Classical scholars often said that the delights of Paradise resemble worldly things in name, while their true nature is beyond what we know.
This does not prove that earthly alcohol is harmless. Nor does it prove that the prohibition is arbitrary. It shows something simpler: God forbids a harmful intoxicant in this life and promises a pure, harmless delight in the next. There is no contradiction in that. The same Lord who forbids poison can promise pleasure without poison.