Fine Times with Wine #485

August 03, 2018

How do you pick your wine? By its history? By its grape? By the picture on the bottle? Well you're about to get your wine world turned upside down. We'll hear about the history of this fabulous fermentation from Kevin Begos, author of the book "Tasting the Past: The Science of Flavor and the Search for the Origins of Wine". Then we'll talk with Erika Szymanski about the little microbes that make it all possible, yeast! On the way, we're going to have Science for the People's first ever wine tasting!

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This episode is hosted by Bethany Brookshire, science writer from Science News.

Guests:

  • Kevin Begos
  • Erika Szymanski

Guest Bios

Kevin Begos

Kevin Begos is a former MIT Knight Science Journalism fellow and a former AP correspondent, who's stories and research have appeared in major newspapers and other publications, including Scientific American, Harper's, Salon, the Christian Science Monitor, the Guild of Sommeliers, USA Today, and the New York Times. He is the author of "Tasting the Past: The Science of Flavor and the Search for the Origins of Wine".

Erika Szymanski

Erika Szymanski works with science and technology perspectives on science communication and rhetoric of science and, increasingly, in interdisciplinary microbe studies. At present, the majority of her work concerns how yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) has been and continues to be shaped as a research tool, in human-yeast relationships more broadly, and in how new biotechnologies may reshape the long trajectory of human co-working practices with this friendliest of microorganisms.