Enology Science and Technology Improve an Ancient Art

Abstract

The emerging science of enology is an interdisciplinary synthesis of chemistry, biochemistry, microbiology, engineering and sensory analytical science. Cbemistry analyses grapes, monitors progress of fermentation and assures that the wine is stable and in conformity with legal specifications. Knowledge of the enzymatically mediated reactions of yeasts and bacteria allows control through external conditions, thus yielding berter wines. Their production also demand modern engineering methods and materials. Wine is made to be appreciated with other foods on the basis of its smell and taste, hence sensory analytical methods can control its production. Basically grape growing and winemaking must be a very ancient practical art because it would have required centuries to develop the sophisticated state depicted in the earliest written records of the third millennium B.C. Louis Pasteur provided the scientific basis for understanding enology and since his time enology has gradually moved from a practical art towards the science of enology. It is hard to imagine how wines of the future will be better than those we now enjoy, the finest ever produced. Certain it is, however, that they will be still better.