I think the general opinion that a vintner is a wine seller - not necessarily a wine producer - is correct (backed up by the Oxford dictionary definition of the term vintner). I found this on a web site for Leith:- << <<At one time, nearly all the wines imported into Scotland came into Leith and the Sherry Room was used as an auction room and one of the walls housed the Vintner's Stand. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, ships carrying wine docked at the Fish Quay at the foot of the Tolbooth Wynd and as soon as the news of a cargo of wine was received, the vintners of the town gathered in the Sherry Room where the President of the Vintners Guild took up his position on the Vintner's Stand. Samples of the various wines were carried to The Vaults where they were tasted and then auctioned. A reconstruction of the tablet of The Association of porters, dated 1678 can be seen bedded into the external stone wall of The Vaults and the original was at one time located in the Square Tower, Tolbooth Wynd, over the entrance to the Old Sugar House Close.>> B. ___________________________________________________________ New Yahoo! Mail is the ultimate force in competitive emailing. Find out more at the Yahoo! Mail Championships. Plus: play games and win prizes. http://uk.rd.yahoo.com/evt=44106/*http://mail.yahoo.net/uk