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During the 1780's Tuscany was very keen on developing a method to ensure their Wine could travel all the way to Britain without spoiling. Tuscany itself was full of British tourists at the time and so there was a great demand. What is amazing is that a large section of the Florentine intellectual class all wanted to address the question of how to make wine that travels. I have read that archeaologists even tried to answer the question from studying Etruscan inscriptions (there was also an Etruscanmania going on). The sideproducts of this research were Vermouth and some other successful drinks.
It wasn't until Louis Pasteur began work about 60 years later, when the science of preserving wine came into being. However what if by accident sulfites were stumbled upon as a solution. Even by simply improving the sanitation within the wineries traveling wine could be "discovered."
An economic boom would occur and Britain might have a greater cultural relationship with Tuscany as well. What other butterflies might take shape?