Professor Paul is examining the relationship among science, production and consumption. His study examines such issues as the use of technology to improve product quality, the role of government in protecting the health of its citizens, the sometimes competing role of government in promoting economic development, and the process of the spread of technology through capitalistic enterprise and government initiative. Professor Paul is examining these issues in the context of the application of science in the development of the wine industry both in France and in California. The study begins with the efforts of scientists to cope with the disastrous infestation of the plant louse which wiped out all of the old French vines. Scientists "invented" a post-phylloxera vine to cope with this and other infestations (oidium, blackrot, mildew, etc.). No less a scientist than Louis Pasteur played a major role in the development of the new science of oenology, drawing on fundamental research in botany, chemistry, biology and medical science. Importantly, Professor Paul will show how scientists were directed in their research by consumers and their developing tastes for wine. Scientists harnessed their expertise to develop a wine based on a taste model whose formation is a complex historical and aesthetical process. The producer, scientist and consumer had to reach consensus on a fundamental long-term if tacit agreement on the nature of this taste model. This history of oenology promises to make significant contributions to our understanding of how science is applied to meet not only the "needs" but the "taste" of its users. The study should be of interest to historians of science, technology and medicine as well as cultural and social historians and those interested in the history of wine.
