Louis Pasteur first applied pasteurization to wine in 1864.
While investigating why French wines sometimes turned sour, Pasteur showed that microscopic organisms caused the spoilage. He found that gently heating young wine for a short time could destroy many of these microbes without ruining the drink’s quality. The method was named pasteurization in his honor.
Pasteur’s work grew from his broader research into fermentation. He demonstrated that yeast and other microorganisms played active roles in producing—or spoiling—beverages, challenging older ideas that fermentation was simply chemical decomposition. He later published his findings in Études sur le vin in 1866 and patented a wine-preservation process in 1865.
A common mix-up is milk: milk pasteurization became important later, especially after German chemist Franz von Soxhlet promoted its use in 1886. Beer was also eventually pasteurized, but wine was the beverage at the center of Pasteur’s original 1860s work.