Wine technology and prospects

·         What does wine making involve?

In the wine making industry work involves making wine, growing the grapes and packaging the bottles. These are some of the few jobs that happens along with management and supervisor. Another job is to visit vineyards and take grape berry for sampling them, to identify the maturity or ripeness of the grapes and also to decide when to harvest them. After this laboratory analysis is carried out by the winemaker to test the levels of sugar acidity and alcohol in the wine after fermentation. There are certain activities during harvest like tasting the grape juice. These are carried out at the wine press.

·         Being an oenologist?

an Oenologists job mainly involves supervising various stages of winemaking. After the harvest of the grapes it is taken to a winery where it is blended with other verities to make wine. They have to supervise the process where the crush the grapes. After forming the pulp yeast, sulfites and sugar are added. The mixture is then heated to activate fermentation. The oenologist decides the chemical composition of the wine so as to decide when to bottle and blend it. samples of wines are analyzed in the laboratory by the technicians which is supervised by oenologists. The recruit assistants, manage the wine cellar conduct tours and tasting, composes labels and sells the wine. These are some of the work that they do. Viticulturists are also similar to oenologists but are mostly involved in the work indoor and not outdoor.

·         Career options

Vineyard Management: they select the required crop varieties, regulate planting, assessing maturity etc. Vineyard manager is responsible for managing a vineyard or winery. Required qualification is B.Sc/M.Sc in Agriculture or a degree in Oenology or viticulture.

Researcher: this includes studying about grapes, harvesting practices etc.

Cellar manager:  they manage the wine making equipment like barrels, bottles, tanks etc

Wine Taster: a professional taster describes about the wine to buyers and customers. They should have thorough knowledge about wine.

Sales and Marketing: they involve in the selling wine. They have to consult distributers and buyers.

There are many wine companies in India that require these professionals and thus the opportunities are abundant. Most of the big wineries in Indi are located in Maharashtra. Joining as an assistant or trainee of a winemaker will give a great kick start to the career and also helps you to learn.

Pay Scale

The pay scale of winemakers differ according to experience, qualification and the organization

they work in. But for a beginner starting salary would be around 20,000 per month. Wine makers

with a lot of experience can earn upto 60,000. Some organizes have chief winemakers who earn

70,000 per month approximately. Vineyard managers usually earn a lot more than makers.