50 Tips for Cellar Rats

By Mary Baker

Learn how to get (and keep) a great job in wine production. This eGuide will provide you with tips on how to find and apply for internships, how to prepare, what to pack and how to thrive in the zany and bustling world of wine production.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mary Baker
• Release date: Jan 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311540638

Mary Baker

My name is Mary Baker and I am a full time, professional freelance writer, journalist and editor. I have been blogging and doing social media for ten years. (Yes, really.)I currently live in Tucson, Arizona with my retired California winery dog Rebel Rose and her feline assistant Bossypants. My motto is “Food, wine, repeat.”

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50 Tips for Cellar Rats: How to Get (and Keep) a Great Job as a Winery Cellar Rat or Harvest Intern

Copyright © March 2010 by Mary C. Baker

Unauthorized reproduction or distribution prohibited.

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-105-51409-8

50 Tips for Cellar Rats: How to Get (and Keep) a Great Job as a Winery Cellar Rat or Harvest Intern

Do you want to work harvest at a winery?

Are you looking for excitement? Want to learn more about wine production? Do you want to sink your hands into a bin of warm, fermenting, aromatic must and breathe deeply of the perfume of terroir?

Working crush at a winery is one of the most exciting work opportunities in the world. You will be working with men and women who are simultaneously artists and scientists, farmers and celebrities.

Wine is an industry that revolves around the land, the magic of soil, and a luxury product that is fragile and yet has been known to improve over decades. Like music, wine is an industry where math, art, and passion combine, and where humble artisans can become stars overnight.

The wine industry has a lot of fans, and many of those fans would like to be a part of it, if even for a few magical moments.

And this is where you come in. I’m assuming that you are seriously interested in working for a winery, and that you are willing to work during harvest, for a time period of 3 weeks to 3 months or more.

If you are considering full-time winery work without previous winery experience, many wineries offer internships as a way of testing your mettle. Lots of full-time employees started out as harvest volunteers or interns, passed the initiation of harvest, fell in love with the job, and stayed.

First of all, be prepared to work hard, and to get cold and wet. If you seriously want to work as a harvest volunteer or intern, prepare your body and mind as you would for an athletic event.

Sure, there are lots of folks who do a 5-day working vacation at wineries eager to sell bed-and-breakfast space, or who help their friends who own wineries.

But a true cellar rat—a designation of fond praise within the industry—will be the last person on the crushpad, hosing all the muck out of the crusher