This popular wine science (and critical wine science studies!) book presents wine science as a set of ways to explore, know, and appreciate wine, in a way designed to be accessible to wine-lovers irrespective of background. Wine science is too often presented as a comprehensive body of knowledge that enthusiasts aiming to become experts should memorize—a way to close down discussion by providing answers. This book instead uses scientific research as a way to open up wine as an endless rich cultural phenomenon which becomes richer through juxtaposing multiple scientific perspectives in social and historical context.

Each chapter takes a journey or “foray” through a topic that connects multiple scientific approaches and contemporary questions around a common theme. The overall organization of the book takes readers from “terrain” (geography, terroir, soil) to brain (the experience of tasting) to “drain” (sustainability). Chapters connect around scientific and social concerns, such as oxygen and ongoing developments in microbe-human coworking, drawing in particular on the author’s work with yeast and multispecies relationships in biotechnology. Each foray emphasizes connections among knowledge, perspectives, and values toward advocating that valuing science need not mean making wine in one “scientific” way. As a whole, the book argues for and exemplifies an approach to wine science as a plurality, and an active, evolving process that need not (and should not) be mutually exclusive with prioritizing culture, creativity, and connection.