Ferment Nation | Wine is Bugs

Like science? Like wine? Join master of wine and master sommelier Doug Frost — only one of four people in the world to hold both distinctions simultaneously — in “Ferment Nation” as he breaks down the science of fermentation, explores the culture of Midwest wine, and cuts out the pretension.

What do bugs have to do with wine? Firstly, yeast, the magical single-celled organisms responsible for fermentation, gives us the wonderful properties of wine we all enjoy. Frost explains how yeast produces alcohol, and explores the history of how the more sinister insect phylloxera once threatened the entire European wine industry, and the American who came to the rescue.

— The six-part series “Ferment Nation” runs Mondays on Flatland through August 8th.