Who created modern oenology? In his published discourse for the centenary (1980) of the Station agronomique de Bordeaux, Emile Peynaud included a photograph iconistically labeled “Professeur Jean Ribéreau-Gayon, le fondateur de l'oenologie moderne”. A summary of Ribéreau-Gayon's brilliant achievements in oenology during his long career in Bordeaux makes a convincing case. When did oenology come to Bordeaux? One obvious and solid answer is that it came in the 1870s with the arrival (1875) and rooting of Ulysse Gayon in the viticultural and university communities of the Bordelais. The paternity of Pasteur, Gayon's own oenological work, his organization of laboratories, his promotion of physiological chemistry, his forging of connections with viticulture and “agro-industry”, along with a modest acquiescence in late veneration of himself by a large number of disciple-admirers – all make the answer a reasonable one. The accompanying temptation to label this series of events as the arrival of modern oenology in Bordeaux is nearly irresistible, even if heuristic confusion is introduced by the concept of modernity.

Another reasonable approach is to postpone the arrival of modern oenology in Bordeaux until after World War I, when Jean Ribéreau-Gayon and his associate, Emile Peynaud, appear as the two major stars in the Bordelais oenological firmament. We may add a contextual judgment to Peynaud's statement on the revolutionary impact of Ribéreau-Gayon's work and methods: an institutional transformation took place in the subject when the two oenologists joined the faculty of sciences.