How to Get a Job in the Wine Industry
The wine industry hires far more broadly than "winemaker," and most entry points don't require a background in wine at all.
People searching for a wine industry career often assume it means becoming a winemaker, which typically does require years of experience or a formal enology degree. In reality, a winery is a small business with the same range of jobs as any other: hospitality, sales, production, administration, marketing, and skilled trades. Most of those roles need no wine background at all, only the transferable skills from whatever you're doing now.
Entry Points That Need No Wine Experience
These are the roles wineries hire for constantly, and where prior industry experience is rarely a requirement:
- Tasting room associate or host: retail and hospitality experience transfers directly
- Harvest cellar intern: seasonal, physical, and the classic way people first break into production
- Events and hospitality staff: wineries increasingly run weddings, dinners, and tours
- Sales and marketing roles at larger wine companies: standard B2B and consumer marketing skills apply
- Administrative, accounting, and warehouse roles: identical to the same job at any other company, just at a winery
If You Want to Work in Production
For cellar, vineyard, or winemaking-track roles specifically, the single best entry point is a harvest season position (see our guide to what cellar hands do and to harvest internships specifically). Wineries hire seasonal crews every year and regularly convert strong seasonal workers into year-round staff once harvest ends. Showing up reliably and asking to learn during a harvest season is, in practice, a more effective path in than a resume alone.
A Practical Job Search Approach
Search by category rather than title alone, since the same job is called different things at different wineries ("cellar hand," "cellar worker," and "production associate" are often the identical job). Target the region you actually want to work in, since wine regions cluster geographically and commuting between them isn't realistic. And apply broadly during harvest season (roughly July through October), when hiring volume across the entire industry is at its highest.