Winemaker (Wine Jobs: Vineyards & Cellars )

  Hill & Associates

  Sandusky, Ohio

Our client is a boutique award winning winery located in the Lake Erie Viticultural region and is one of the most respected wineries in the State.
The winery has just been purchased and the new owners are looking for a talented winemaker to take the helm of operations.
The current winemaker will be retiring soon. There is also a talented operation team that have been with the winery for many years who will be of great help as well.

The responsibilities include:

Oversee all phases of winery activities such as harvest, crush, fermentation, pump over, racking, filtering, filling, kegs, cleaning/sanitizing tanks, kegs, and winery equipment.

Supervise all steps of the crop production and ranging process, including planting, fertilizing, and harvesting.

Responsible for making the critical decision of when to harvest. Evaluating how the fruit has ripened and assessing its tannins, acid and sugar content.

Manage the destemming and crushing process, fermentation, and blending process.

Maintain the vineyard to produce a healthy and abundant grape harvest by implementing effective and safe agricultural practices to ensure disease-free vines. Disease prevention includes having good practices in place when introducing new vines and ensuring that they are also disease-free, monitoring the vines for signs of disease or pests and ordering lab and field tests to test for diseases and soil quality. Responsible for making decisions about how to treat diseases and pests, as well as how to train or trellis vines, weed management, hiring and training of vineyard workers and managing the harvest. Responsible for overseeing the grape growing process.

Develop a site plan that determined where grapes should be grown and harvested each year. Responsible for planning and directing the operations of the vineyard, assign daily tasks, and setting budget and goals for vineyard and production teams. In charge of all vineyard purchasing and inventory maintenance, recording activity, and maintaining logs for vine growth, weather patterns, pest/disease control, nutrient applications, crop assessments, grape weights, etc.

You should also be an expert in matters related to raw product quality, market trends and science of perishable inventory management.

Assist growers to improve their production conditions to assure consistency in the grapes and managed field programs with the growers using technology and data to ensure the fruit is being harvested at the correct times.

The winemaker would also be on the tasting panel for final approval of any new import brand or private label for consideration.

The winery currently has 24 acres under vine to be managed with a total of 60,000 cases of production annually.