Heating wine just enough to kill germs, without cooking it, saved a national industry
French wine and beer were spoiling in transit, and Louis Pasteur traced the problem to living microorganisms rather than the chemistry of the drink itself. He found that briefly heating the liquid to around 50–60°C killed the spoilage microbes while leaving the taste largely intact, a process patented in 1865. The same technique now keeps milk safe to drink for weeks instead of days.