Maître de Chai

Appears in
Oxford Companion to Wine

By Jancis Robinson

Published 2006

  • About

maître de chai, term often used in France, particularly in Bordeaux, for the cellarmaster, as opposed to the régisseur, who might manage the whole estate, or certainly the vineyards. It means literally ‘master of the chai’. As science and academe invade winemaking, the winemaking decisions are increasingly made by an oenologist.