For 8,000 years, humanity made wine without quite knowing why it worked.

A remarkable achievement. Especially considering how often it turned into vinegar.

By the 19th century, scientists were arguing about fermentation. Was it simply a chemical reaction, or were those tiny things under the microscope actually alive?

In 1837, several researchers suggested yeast was a living organism responsible for fermentation.

The establishment was unimpressed. The idea was even publicly mocked. Science had its own comment section.

Then came Louis Pasteur.

Beginning in 1857, he helped establish that microorganisms drove fermentation. In 1863, Napoleon III asked him to investigate why French wines kept spoiling.

An imperial priority. Quite rightly.

Pasteur’s research led to Études sur le vin (1866) and techniques to prevent microbial spoilage.

But in 1897, Eduard Buchner complicated matters again: even extracts from yeast, without intact living cells, could ferment sugar. Enzymes were doing the work. He won the Nobel Prize in 1907.

So fermentation went from mystery to microbial science to biochemistry.

The wine, meanwhile, had been fermenting perfectly well throughout.

It simply never felt the need to explain itself.

OINOS — Wine, in context.