BLINDED WINE WITH SCIENCE

For centuries wine was produced and enjoyed with little thought for and no true understanding of its underlying science, wine evolved through "spontaneous generation," as far as anyone knew. French chemist Louis Pasteur, among many discoveries relating to his germ theory of diseases, first proposed and proved, in 1857, that wine is made by microscopic organisms, yeasts. This led to the discovery and development of different yeast types and properties and ultimately to better hygiene, less spoilage, and greater efficiency in wine production. In 1860, Dr. Jules Guyot published the first of three treatises describing regional traditional vinicultural and viticultural practices as well as his own observations and arguments on the economy of grape growing. Before these documents, viniculture was a practice that had been apprenticed from generation to generation for over 5000 years, without written records or formal instruction.