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.
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