Seasonal Assistant Winemaker - Soledad

The Wine Group (TWG) is a leading producer of award-winning wines and alcoholic beverages across 120+ brands. With operations in California, New York and Australia, TWG is an innovator in developing and marketing brands beloved by consumers globally, including Cupcake, Franzia, Benziger, Imagery, Tribute, Chloe, Meiomi, Cooks, 7 Deadly, Cooper & Thief, and more. We produce our products using sustainable practices to create delicious beverages that people can feel good about. Visit us at www.thewinegroup.com.


JOB SUMMARY

Under the direction of Senior Winemaking, Assistant Winemaker’s role will be directly responsible for the day-to-day winemaking and maintenance of wine quality. Key areas of responsibility include support and facilitation between various production teams (including lab, winemaking, and cellar), ensuring priorities and protocols are achieved, cost effectiveness, accuracy, and safety to all performance standards.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS

• Must have a complete understanding of the enological process from grapes through blending.
• Have basic understanding of cellar processing equipment.
• Assist the Winemaking team to ensure wines meet target sensory and analytical quality requirements.
• Direct lab analysis based on wine needs. Must have strong analytical background to run analysis in lab techs absence, or when requested.
• Participates in short and long-term planning of finishing/blending wines for bottling at TWG facilities. Work Winemaking to establish facility processing and blending priorities according to clarifying, bottling, shipping, and customer demands. Customer demands can frequently change so flexibility is key.
• Write process orders for distribution to operations for completion.
• Assist by writing up process orders, prioritizing work and verifying work is complete.
• Complete blending/fining trials, or other experiments as directed.
• Be able to taste wine at various levels of the winemaking process. Participates in tasting of fermenters, holdback samples against current bottling blends and new proposed wines. Taste inventory samples weekly upon completion of lab running the analysis.
• Verifies and maintains overall wine quality through different winemaking practices. Will require traveling to other TWG facilities.
• Makes up tasting sheets and participates in customer tastings as directed by the Senior Winemaker/Winemaker.
• Participates in creating blends.
• Coordinate wines for shipment as requested by customers. Verifying the wines are in the spec per the customer’s request. Assistant Winemaker to work with Senior Winemaker/Winemaker on signing off blend and shipping approvals prior to wine leaving. Including analysis, composition verification and confirmation of taste for quality.
• Work with the operations team on forecasting and ordering of wine additives.
• Participates in development of new or restructuring of existing blends.
• Attend seminars and classes for continual education.
• In the absence of the Senior Winemaker’s, the Assistant Winemaker will need to fill in and cover the Winemaker duties.
• This job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for their job. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice.
• Must embrace and demonstrate The Wine Group's Vision, Mission, Values of Long-Term Sustainable Value Creation, while being Relentlessly Entrepreneurial, with Empowered People who are Responsible and Trustworthy and keep them in mind when making all decisions.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Must be 21 years or older at time of hire.
• Degree in Enology, or related field.
• Minimum 2 years pervious winemaking experience.
• Passionate about wine quality while being cost-minded at the same time.
• Well-developed organoleptic skills.
• Good understanding of lab and wine processing equipment.
• Must be able to demonstrate ability to lead.
• Ability to set priorities and work independently within set guidelines. Good time management skills.
• Strong knowledge of production operations.
• Self-starter. Must be able to openly communicate with other departments.
• Ability to multi-task, work independently and with a team in a fast-paced, high-volume environment with emphasis on accuracy and timeliness.
• Excellent organizational and interpersonal skills with attention to detail.
• Provide good verbal and written communications to all levels of management, both internally and externally Prioritize while able to adapt to changing priorities.
• Work independently within set guidelines.
• Routinely uses standard office equipment such as computers, phones, pho