Winemaker
A winemaker or vintner is a person engaged in winemaking. They are generally employed by wineries or wine companies, where their work includes:
Cooperating with viticulturists
Monitoring the maturity of grapes to ensure their quality and to determine the correct time for harvest
Crushing and pressing grapes
Monitoring the settling of juice and the fermentation of grape material
Filtering the wine to remove remaining solids
Testing the quality of wine by tasting
Placing filtered wine in casks or tanks for storage and maturation
Preparing plans for bottling wine once it has matured
Making sure that quality is maintained when the wine is bottled
Today, these duties require an increasing amount of scientific knowledge, since laboratory tests are gradually supplementing or replacing traditional methods. Winemakers can also be referred to as oenologists as they study oenology – the science of wine.
Vintner
A vintner is a wine merchant. In some modern use, particularly in American English, the term is also used as a synonym for winemaker.