Abstract
More than 7,000 years ago, when grapes and yeast joined forces for the first time to lift the spirit of humankind, the ancients imbibed with joy, unknowingly celebrating the beginnings of one of the world's oldest biotechnological processes. The first “magical” juice came from spontaneously fermented grapes cultivated in the Zagros Mountains of Ancient Persia and the Caucasus Mountain Range between the Black and Caspian Seas. The “mystical art” through which sugary, bland‐tasting grape juice is turned into flavoursome wine with hedonic and preservative properties, quickly spilled over into neighbouring regions of Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Egypt, Phoenicia, Greece and the Mediterranean Basin [1]. > As European seafarers set sail to discover and explore far‐off continents, their ships carried both the “fermenting knowledge” of winemaking and the “geminating seeds” of yeast biotechnology. Following colonisation by the Greeks, Phoenicians and Romans, winemaking spread throughout Europe and became embedded in the diet and cultural activities of both the aristocracy and proletariat. Roman potters developed large earthenware pots for storage and transport. The Gauls taught the Romans how to fashion barrels from wood, and oak barrels became the vessel of choice for yeast cells to ferment grape must into wine—a skill that survived the Roman Empire and the Dark Ages of economic and cultural decay. With the dawn of the Age of Enlightenment, geographic exploration was accompanied by a search for scientific knowledge. As European seafarers set sail to discover and explore far‐off continents, their ships carried both the “fermenting knowledge” of winemaking and the “geminating seeds” of yeast biotechnology. A century before the French biochemist, Louis Pasteur, zoomed in to the bubbling and frothing content of oak barrels and discovered that tiny yeast cells were responsible for the fermentation of grape juice into wine, the Berkshire cartographer, John Spilsbury, zoomed out to reveal …
Highlights
Solving yeast jigsaw puzzles over a glass of wineSynthetic genome engineering pioneers new possibilities for wine yeast research Isak S Pretorius
More than 7,000 years ago, when grapes and yeast joined forces for the first time to lift the spirit of humankind, the ancients imbibed with joy, unknowingly celebrating the beginnings of one of the world’s oldest biotechnological processes
The Gauls taught the Romans how to fashion barrels from wood, and oak barrels became the vessel of choice for yeast cells to ferment grape must into wine—a skill that survived the Roman Empire and the Dark Ages of economic and cultural decay
Summary
Synthetic genome engineering pioneers new possibilities for wine yeast research Isak S Pretorius. “As European seafarers set sail to discover and explore far-off continents, their ships carried both the “fermenting knowledge” of winemaking and the “geminating seeds” of yeast biotechnology.”. A century before the French biochemist, Louis Pasteur, zoomed in to the bubbling and frothing content of oak barrels and discovered that tiny yeast cells were responsible for the fermentation of grape juice into wine, the Berkshire cartographer, John Spilsbury, zoomed out to reveal the “Big Picture” of the British Empire in 1767 through the invention of a “dissected map”. The jigsaw puzzle evolved into a problem-solving recreational pastime and educational toy
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