Pasteur's Revolution: Wine as Science

Louis Pasteur's 1866 "Études sur le Vin" transformed winemaking from mysterious art to comprehensible science. Investigating wine diseases plaguing French exports, Pasteur discovered that microorganisms caused wine spoilage and that heating wine briefly prevented deterioration. But his greater contribution was revealing fermentation itself—that yeast converted sugar to alcohol, that different yeasts produced different flavors, that controlling fermentation meant controlling quality.

This scientific understanding revolutionized French winemaking. Winemakers could now prevent problems rather than merely respond to them. Sulfur dioxide's antimicrobial properties were understood and applied judiciously. Temperature control during fermentation, previously haphazard, became precise. The mystery of why some barrels produced great wine while adjacent ones spoiled was solved—microbiology, not magic.

French wine schools, established following Pasteur's discoveries, spread scientific winemaking globally. The University of Bordeaux's Institute of Oenology, founded in 1880, became the world's premier wine science institution. Graduates carried French methods worldwide, establishing France as the intellectual center of global wine knowledge.

Women entered wine science through these educational institutions, though their contributions were often minimized. Marie-Louise Roudil, one of the first female oenology graduates, pioneered malolactic fermentation control in the 1920s. Her techniques, allowing winemakers to soften harsh acids biologically, became standard practice worldwide, though she received little recognition during her lifetime.