Bugged wines

An Asian ladybug with an appetite for bruised grapes has been spreading throughout the United States since 1988. Canadian researchers confirm that the foul-smelling chemicals that these bugs secrete can easily spoil an entire vintage. The researchers also describe a treatment that they’re investigating for such ladybug-tainted wine.

Chemists had suspected that the ladybugs’ recently identified stinky ingredients, called methoxypyrazines, were mingling with grape juice at harvest time, giving wine the taste and aroma of peanuts, bell peppers, and asparagus—a mixture unlikely to captivate oenophiles.