Welcome to Daily TWiP, your daily dose of all the holidays and history we couldn’t cram into The Week in Preview.

It wasn’t long ago that drinking wine was more an endurance test for the tastebuds than a palate-pleasing experience. Thanks to the suggestions of celebrated enologist Emile Peynaud, modern wines are smoother and more pleasant to drink than their predecessors. Peynaud died today (July 18th) in 2004 near Bordeaux, France.

Born June 29, 1912, in Madiran, Gers, France, the heart of one of France’s winemaking regions, Peynaud made his first foray into enology (or oenology, if you’re British) at the age of 15. Enology is the science and study of all aspects of winemaking apart from growing the vines and harvesting the grapes, which are part of a subfield known as viticulture.

As an employee at Maison Calvet, Peynaud helped develop a system for analyzing the company’s wines. He further pursued his interest in the chemical makeup of wine at the University of Bordeaux (where he ultimately became a professor), researching scientific explanations for the difficulties that arose in the winemaking process.

Peynaud’s conclusions were simple and quite sensible in retrospect, but at the time, winemakers were reluctant to embrace them. First (and perhaps most importantly), wine grapes should be picked when they were ripe, not underripe or overripe as was common practice, and should be used as soon as possible after picking to ensure a quality wine.

Second, prior to crushing and fermentation, grapes should be separated into different batches based on any factors that might affect the quality of the fruit, such as vineyard location. This afforded winemakers greater control over the tannin extraction process and ultimately, greater control over the balance of flavors in the wine.

Peynaud also advocated the use of malolactic fermentation, in which malic acid (naturally occurring in grapes) is converted into lactic acid, resulting in a less abrasive flavor, as well as clean wooden casks in which to ferment the wine. Old wooden casks could be a breeding ground for unwanted bacteria, which could interfere with the wine’s flavor.

Over the course of his career, Peynaud wrote numerous papers and articles and worked as a consultant for more than a hundred wineries throughout France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Mexico, and the United States. His prolificacy helped spread his ideas to vintners around the world, altering the face of modern winemaking for the better.

In honor of Peynaud’s death anniversary, we encourage you to enjoy a glass of your favorite wine, savoring its flavor and bouquet. It’s thanks to Peynaud, after all, that your preferred Bordeaux doesn’t double as paint remover.

Daily TWiP appears Monday through Saturday courtesy of The Week in Preview. Read more of both at www.nashuatelegraph.com/columnists/weekinpreview.

– Teresa Santoski

Do you like Daily TWiP? Now you can like it on Facebook, too! Visit our Facebook fan page at www.facebook.com/DailyTWiP.

Keep track of Daily TWiP, The Week in Preview, Tete-a-tete, and Teresa’s general ramblings at http://twitter.com/TeresaInPreview.