Louis Pasteur, the French microbiologist, is most famous for the heat treatment process that bears his name. Pasteurization has saved untold millions of lives by killing off foodborne pathogens, which used to be one of the top killers of humans.

He wasn't limited to saving lives by modernizing milk and he was modest about his efforts in food. As scientists often do, he believed he had 'stood on the shoulders of giants.' In the case of pasteurization, he had 7,000 years of supporting work already done, and he had studied it all. As he famously said, "dans les champs de l'observation, le hasard ne favorise que les esprits préparés." (basically, when it comes to scientific observation, you need to do your homework first).

He wasn't doing all of that preparation to make better milk, he was tackling what the French government thought was really important: Emperor Napoleon III's wine collection.

What ails wine? And how will science help?

Heating wine to make it last longer was known to have happened as far back as the 12th century in Asia, but no one was sure why - but too much is a bad thing. To make wine, sugar is fermented into alcohol and carbon dioxide.