Gough, J.B., "Winecraft and chemisty in 18th-century France: Chaptal and
the invention of Chaptalization," *Technology and Culture,* vol. 39, no. 1
(January, 1998), 74-104.

 "As techniques improved prices fell, and few were driven by poverty into
dreary lives of chronic sobriety" (p. 86)--so writes science historian
Jerry Gough in this splendid recent article.  The story of adding sugar to
wine to improve its balance, correct weaknesses of an early grape harvest,
and increase alcohol content turns out to be a window on the relationship
between wine and the social and technical histories of the time.
Pre-summarizes Gough:

"In this article, I shall attempt to demonstrate that the emergence of
these new and powerful viticultural technniques were the result of a
complex set of interactions involving governments, wine growers, merchants,
consumers, chemists, and colonists and that the history of these procedures
provides an illuminating example of the increasingly important role of
chemists and chemistry in the technological development of French industry
during the 18th century.  as we shall see, chemists acted not only (not
even primarily) in their capacity as theoreticians but as assemblers,
disseminators, and empirical evaluators and improvers of new and useful
viticultural techniques.  In addition, one of the central concerns of this
article will be to explian why chaptalization in all the senses listed
above became widely practiedc in the 18thg century and how it was that one
of these procedures came to be called after Chaptal, even though he was
not, in fact, its inventor" (pp. 76-77).

A real treat, if you haven't seen it yet.