A Day in the Life; What Working in the Wine Industry Actually Looks Like for Me

If you’ve read my previous post about what Greg does, you have seen how a winery operates from the vineyard and winery perspective. My job is quite different than Greg’s.

I work at Church Road Winery as a Visitor Experience and Cellar Door Host. What that means is that I am responsible for many aspects of what makes a visit to our winery a great experience for the customers. I’ve included some examples below:

⁃ doing tastings at the bar for walk in customers or pre-booked groups

– tour operator group tastings at the bar, or seated at tables for small or large groups

⁃ running the till for people to pay for their meals, tastings, wine, or merchandise

⁃ answering the phone

⁃ educating customers about the wine and helping them in the shop

⁃ serving wine and drinks to tables at the restaurant or those enjoying the lawn area. We have a restaurant in the Cellar Door, and although we don’t run the food part, all of the drink orders for all beverages (even Soda, etc.) come through us. We are also responsible to clear, wash and polish all of the glasswear.

⁃ VIP drink service and general assistance at concerts

⁃ tours of the winery and through the museum, which include educating the guests on the history of the company, the wine making process, and our specific procedures

⁃ stocking the shelves in the shop with wine and merchandise

⁃ stocking the bar with wine, drinks, and clean glasswear

⁃ working in the new Container Bar. We just opened our new bar down in our park area. It used to be a shipping container and is now a really nice outdoor bar where we can serve drinks to outdoor customers wanting wine and snacks on the beanbag chairs or blankets in the park. We can also use it for concert service and as an additional tasting area on really busy days.

⁃ So much more!

Church Road is only closed 4 days of the year, and we are the most visited winery in Hawke’s Bay. The team won “Cellar Door of the Year” last year, meaning they were named the best Cellar Door experience in the whole region; this shows and means that the Church Road team takes the visitors’ experience very seriously and places it in high regard. There are about 16 of us that do what I do. We have a wide range of ages represented on the team as well, which is so nice!

We are very busy most of the time! We are open from 10:30am to 4:30pm for tastings, but we have a beautiful venue that is often rented out for weddings and other functions after hours. We are also hosting several Sunday Jazz festivals in our park, as well as 5 big name concerts this summer, like UB40, Fatboy Slim, Toto, Sticky Fingers and Angus & Julia Stone. This all means that my hours can jump around quite a bit, and my weekly schedule is never the same.

We also have a gorgeous setting!

One of my favourite parts of my job is leading the tours. We offer 2 tours per day; the Behind the Scenes Tour is at 11:00am and requires booking ahead. This one features an hour and a half experience of a full winery tour, on which the guests get to taste wine right out of our Oak Cuves and Stainless tanks, visit our wine museum, (which is the only one in New Zealand), and have a seated tasting that is paired with food. The second is at 2:00pm and is a Winery and Museum tour, that features a more basic walk through the winery and museum, and a tasting at a private bar afterwards. I have recently begun doing these tours on my own, and have done a good number now, with various sizes of groups up to 15 people. As a teacher, getting to teach people who actually want to be there and who have lots of questions, is so refreshing. Teaching the visitors, and talking about wine with them is really enjoyable, and there’s no homework to mark afterwards either.

In addition, when cruise ships are in, sometimes extra tours will be booked that start at 9:30am or 10:00am, and we will open early for those groups. We’re expecting 72 cruise ships in Napier this summer, and several of them will bring in large groups to Church Road. I just co-lead my first 40 person tour last week; the group was engaged and asked a lot of questions, and it was so much fun to do the tour with my colleague.

It is typical for me to start at either 10:00am or 11:00am, and on my schedule it says I work until “F,” which means when we’re finished! Sometimes, if it’s been a slow or rainy day, and we can get all of our glassware washed, restocking the wine done and all the other cleaning and organizing finished sooner, we will be done work by 4:30pm or 5:00pm. Other days, when the weather is nice, and people are hanging around finishing wine outside, or if we’ve been busy and have lots of glasses piled up, we don’t finish until 5:30pm or 6:00pm. There have been a few days when I’ve been helping unload palates of wine into the store room, after our stock has been replenished, or cleaning up until after 6:00pm.

We don’t get scheduled lunch breaks, because we are usually the busiest over lunch. We take turns popping into the back for 15 minutes or so to eat, and then we come back out so the next person can go. We have the freedom to use the washroom or go grab a snack or drink when we have a moment. Sometimes one of my colleagues will make tea in the afternoon, or someone will bring baking, and we’ll stand at one of the bars and have a cup (if we’re not slammed)! The plus side to a schedule like that is that I’m paid for the whole time, even while I’m eating lunch, or while we’re having tea, so more work means more money.

I also love my colleagues, and spending time with them at work is fun! Lots of times when I go to work, it feels like I’m on my way to go spend the day with friends. We truly have an amazing team of people (and if you can’t tell by these photos, we have a lot of fun)!

Another part of the job that I love is doing tastings. I get to meet so many amazing people from all over the world when I’m behind the bar. Most of the people that come to the counter are traveling, and as they are generally on holiday, and they’re out wine tasting, they’re usually in a great mood (99% of the time). I enjoy asking them questions about where they’re from, hearing their stories, and getting to talk about wine with them.

Every day of work is so different, and there’s so many things I might do. It really depends on the time of year, the weather, if there’s a cruise ship in, if the tours are booked or not, if the restaurant is fully booked and lots of drink orders are coming through, if there’s a function or concert that day, etc.

Another great perk of my job is that we get to have a bit of wine at the end of each work day! I love this part for a few reasons. Drinking great wine is obviously a huge plus. Apart from the obvious, getting to taste the wine helps us keep our palates tuned into the wines we’re talking about to people every day. We have 25 wines at Church Road, so it’s helpful to keep trying different wines again, to keep them fresh in our minds. Even more enjoyable to me though, are the friendships being built during this time. I love that we all sit down for half an hour or so after work and unwind together, and talk about our personal lives as friends. It really encourages a positive work environment and building relationships with our colleagues. Sometimes the Winemaker will join us as well, or our bosses will, and we get to see them in a different light. It’s a really special time of day for me, and I make sure not to rush off unless I absolutely have to be somewhere.

Another question Greg and I are often asked is how much we actually drink the wine from our places of work.

I personally really love Church Road wine; several of them have won many awards and they’re of high quality, so it’s not at all difficult to want to drink them! Our Winemaker was named the best in the country in 2013 and 2016, and he definitely knows what he’s doing. Church Road is a highly recognized and reputable brand throughout New Zealand. It’s too bad we can’t ship to Canada, or I’d be sending it back in hordes already! There are extra perks sometimes too… for example, our Chief Winemaker, Chris Scott, had an interview with a wine writer a few weeks ago, and he opened a bunch of really high quality, aged wine. Not only did us Church Road staff get to try it after work, but as they would just go to waste otherwise, we got to take the bottles home the next night. Greg and I had the remainders of a 2006 Grand Reserve Chardonnay and a 2002 Tom Merlot Cabernet with our dinner.

Surprisingly, I even enjoy some of the tasks I thought I wouldn’t, like polishing glassware. The ladies told me I would find it a nice, zen-like break from doing tastings on busy days, and it really actually is! It’s a great place to either rest our voices, or have a chat while polishing together (like our version of the water cooler)!

Most surprising to me, is that I also love taking the cardboard out. It is so strange to me that I love that job, but whenever there’s cardboard, I’m all, “I’ll take it!” That sounds ridiculous, but allow me to explain. I have moments every time I go do it, when I put that “high-vis” jacket on and get to stroll through the working winery to the cardboard bin. (Side note, I ran into UB40 while taking the cardboard out last week, so that was pretty amazing too.) Besides the off chance celebrity run in, I think I love it because it’s a particular moment in the day when I take a walk outside, and stop to realize that I actually work in a winery. Me. I do! I’ve dreamt of it for years, and now I do. Taking the cardboard out sounds like such a menial task to enjoy, but it reminds me of what I’m actually doing with my life right now. I can hardly wait to take the cardboard out during vintage when I’ll get to see all the grapes coming in and being processed!

Thanks for reading, blog family; that’s such a small glimpse into what I do, but it gives you the general idea for now. I’ll be sure to post updates on my job as it changes, and once vintage starts.

…And if you ever get a chance, have a glass of Church Road wine, and think of me. 🍷❤️