What Studying Fermentation Taught Me About Community

Bread, wine, yeast, and the quiet collaboration behind two of humanity’s oldest foods.

In Beaune, enjoying Meursault with sourdough, which coincidentally rhymes.

This morning, I sat my D1 exam for the WSET Diploma, the unit that covers wine production.

For months, I had been studying fermentation in extraordinary detail, getting down into the nitty gritty of how yeast converts sugar into alcohol, heat, and carbon dioxide. I memorized the La…