Definition: Partisseur

"The divider was also present, a figure of occasion, but not without importance; he was a local dignitary, also a long-time regular at the house and its cellars, where he had been settling in with a piece of chalk for I don't know how many years. His duties consisted of recording the number of bunches of grapes that entered the press and keeping an accurate account of them; he also had general supervision of the equipment, and then another more delicate task, which was to monitor drinking, as the pressers received, in addition to their wages, a certain number of litres of wine per day. The divider in question was said to be "very good at arithmetic", which greatly impressed me, while his attentive figure, with his thick knitted hunting waistcoat, velvet cap and grey moustache, his index finger and thumb white with chalk, always occupied the same place near the door of the wine press.