Vintners

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Those involved in the growing of grapes, operating wine businesses, and handling all stages of wine production and sales
2. Individuals specializing in cultivating vineyards, directing winemaking enterprises, and supervising the making and distribution of wines
3. Persons engaged in growing grapevines for wine production ; individuals who own or manage businesses that make and market wines

Etymology: "Vintners" is the plural of "vintner," and the surprise lies in the word's original job: a vintner was first a wine merchant, not a winemaker. The Medieval Latin "vīnētārius" meant "wine dealer," built from "vīnētum," a vineyard, which itself came from "vīnum," wine. The Old French forms "vineter" and "vinetier" carried the same sense, and "wine-merchant" and "grape-harvester" both appear among its meanings, so the trade of buying and selling wine sat close to the work of picking grapes. English took the word in through Middle English as "vyntener," a variant of "viniter." The modern sense of someone who makes wine comes from the producing end of that same trade, so the word's emphasis has shifted from selling to producing over the centuries.

Synonyms: winemakers, brewers, fermenters, grape growers, wine producers