🍷 Winemaker

A winemaker (also called a vintner) is the specialist who takes wine from the arrival of grapes to bottling. In the European occupation classification ESCO this job appears as the vineyard cellar master, responsible for the cellar from the entry of the grapes to on-site bottling and distribution, with quality kept in check at every stage under the rules.

ESCO lists the working skills: monitoring fermentation, controlling the quality of the wine and of the grapes, crushing grapes and managing cellar operations. France's job directory ROME adds the blending side. In the winery they do the assemblage, measure alcohol and filter. All of this happens within AOC rules, hygiene rules and the company's own quality criteria.

Where winemakers work varies. ROME names winegrowers' farms, wine cooperatives, small craft cellars and wine trading companies, the négociant's world. The qualifications differ too, but to be an oenologist in France you need the national oenology diploma, so winemaker and oenologist are not always one person. On bigger estates a vineyard manager may run both vineyard and winery, sometimes with administration and marketing as well, and ESCO describes that role separately.

The work is seasonal, and ROME names harvest and fermentation. What sets a winemaker apart from a vineyard worker, in short, is that the winemaker deals with the fruit once it is picked, not with the vine.