Updated October 2021
How to get hired and work at a winery?
Harvest season is approaching and a question I get often from non-wine industry friends is “how can I work at a winery for harvest”? If you want to experience the rush of crush and immerse yourself in the incredible experience of making wine without making a dramatic career shift, read on below; discover what it’s like to work at a winery and how to get a harvest gig.
4 harvests across 3 continents
I’ll start by explaining how I was able to negotiate three harvest internships and later, provide some tips on doing this yourself.
Starting in 2017, somewhere between driving driving through the island of Tasmania, Australia and hiking the hillside of Rioja, Spain, I fell in love with wine; I became obsessed with it. While working remotely, I tasted wine all over the world and digested as many books, articles and wine-themed podcasts as I could get my hands on.
Yarra Valley, Australia
My first harvest was accidental. I simply applied for housing on a wine farm in Victoria via a website called Workaway. This is a great website that provides free housing for travelers in exchange for a small amount of hands-on work (usually gardening or farm related). Another comparable service is WWOOF.
I happened to stay in February, so I was working on the vines, in the cellar and at the tasting room during the busiest time in the year for wineries. This was a great introduction to the overall winemaking process and fueled my interest further. One of the highlights from this Aussie adventure was discovering a kangaroo munching on the grapes while on patrol with the Gator!
Our guide to Margaret River, Australia
Burgundy, France
All it took was one sip and I was hooked. I had tasted Pinot Noir before, but never like this! Having one harvest under my belt, I was ready to work somewhere where I really loved the wine.
I didn’t see anything offered on WWOOF or Workaway, so I would just have to travel to the motherland of wine and find a cave to work at. To work in France, one must parler français–after a few months of language practice, I was comfortable enough to get by in conversation. For tips on picking up new languages, I wrote a post about learning new languages fast.
I received 99 “No’s”.. But one “Yes”.
First stop on my trip was Chablis; located on the northern end of Burgundy, known for their crisp, dry white wines. With Kermit Lynch’s Adventures on the Wine Route as my guide, I walked up to a highly rated maison de vigneron and knocked. The winemaker sauntered to the door and answered, “oui?”
“Bonjour! Je m’appelle Jesse. Je voudrais degustar votre vin et travailler avec vous pour le vendage!”. Hello, my name is Jesse and I would like to try your wine and work with you for harvest.
“Non, Merci.” I could taste the wines, but there was no chance I was going to help make them. I’m sure my awful accent didn’t help. So, I made my way down the Cote d’Or and I received 99 “No’s”.. But eventually, one “Yes”. And along the way, was able to taste some amazing wine.
The one “yes” was a small, family-run winery in southern Burgundy and became one of my greatest life experiences. Work wasn’t easy, and some days stretched upwards of 18 hours–but I was happy. Waking up at the wine estate early, heading to the vines to pick, pausing for a cheese/wine/bread picnic, dashing back to the cellar for sorting, pumping, punching, testing, crushing, stirring, stacking, rolling, lifting, tasting, sweating and bleeding.
I’ve never worked so hard with both my body and mind simultaneously; it was a spiritual experience and I had never been happier up until that point in life. I still stay in touch with the vigneron et famille to this day and consider them my French family.
Don’t miss our complete wine guide to Burgundy
Santa Cruz Mountains, USA
Up until this point, I hadn’t pre-selected the wineries to complete a harvest–I was just happy to be working at a winery. That changed with a boutique producer specializing in Pinot Noir, located in the Santa Cruz mountains of California.
At this point in life, I was now together with the girl of my dreams–a fellow wine nut and co-founder of this website. The two of us stumbled upon the wine route of Carmel Valley and made some great discoveries. After a long day of tasting, I decided to send a colorful email to one of our favorite producers, explaining how much we enjoyed their juice and offered my help with the upcoming harvest.
To our luck, the winemaker was looking for some extra hands to help and I secured the job for the both of us. We were able to stay in an RV right on the vines, which allowed us to become fully immersed in the experience.
Columbia Gorge, Washington
Our current location as of early 2021, we’ve written a lot about this region and our experience working for a local producer. See the following links for more:
Useful tips for working a harvest at a winery
Hopefully you enjoyed the three, very different approaches to getting a harvest internship; all which amounted to a priceless amount of hands-on learning and fundamental appreciation for winemaking. Here are some more helpful tips for getting a harvest job:
Start: Reach out to friends who work at wineries or places that you’ve tasted at and love. Locate the contact info per the website and send a quick email introducing yourself and what you’d like to accomplish. It’s ok if you have no experience. Remember: every winery needs extra help during crush. Just understand that if you’ve never worked in wine before, you may not be at the top of the list for a winery looking for seasonal employees.
Looking abroad: Old world (Europe) wineries may be more difficult to contact online and my advice is to learn the language, travel there, and find a spot the old-fashioned way (before the days of e-mail). Just make sure to study the visa work laws for each region. Check out the Facebook group Traveling Winemakers: Living the dream for more details on this topic.
Don’t expect to make much money: Winemaking costs are high and margins are thin. As such, pay for seasonal harvest work should not be the main driving factor.
Start your search early: Once you identify a region where you’d like to work, find out when their harvest begins and start asking as early as 6 months in advance. Wineries will pick their harvest help before their grapes, so get in front of it. Generally Northern Hemisphere will start their harvest in Aug/Sep and Southern Hemisphere in Feb/Mar. However, the start and end date of a harvest season vary greatly by the type of varietals, climate and size of the winery.
Allot some time: Don’t expect to simply offer up a few weekends and call it a day. A true harvest internship will be anywhere from 4-8+ weeks of intense, long days. If you don’t have a flexible working schedule with your day job, perhaps it’s best to plan a sabbatical, PTO or an in-between job gap to accommodate.
So fresh n’ so clean: As low man on the totem pole, get ready to do a lot of cleaning. Aside from oxygen, there’s no greater threat to the winemaking process than bacteria. Relax–it’s a humbling experience; working with your hands instead of staring into a computer all day is a healthy life choice and a good change of pace.
Do it: Even if you’re on the fence–you won’t regret it. You’ll learn more than any class can teach. Who knows.. this may even lead to an entirely new path in life.
