If you love wine, you’re in good company. In 2018 alone, Fortune Magazine says Americans drank over 9.7 billion gallons of booze. There’s no shortage of work in the wine industry—if you know where to look.
If you love wine, there are enormous wine jobs to start a career in the industry. Not only is it an opportunity to work at something you already love, but it can also be a lucrative endeavor if you choose the right job. You may have thought about being a sommelier, a market researcher, or a lab technician, but you feel you’re not cut for it. Thus, there are other things you can do aside from those mentioned above.
Most Lucrative Wine Jobs In 2022
If you’d thought being a sommelier meant being a joke, you probably didn’t know you’d have to be educated for any other position. You can start at a sommelier school and possibly consider other degrees to be a coveted talent for wine jobs. You can also watch a video through this link:
Whatever you do and however you do it, here are some of the most lucrative wine jobs you should know in 2022:
Wine Tasting
A wine taster is a person who tastes wine, either professionally or as part of their job. It’s a very specific role that requires you to taste and analyze the different characteristics of wines to identify them accurately. You’ll need to have excellent concentration skills; an understanding of how different wines are made and how they will affect your palate. It also helps if you understand the history behind each type of wine.
To become a professional, you’ll need at least two years of experience in the field, including attending courses in sensory evaluation and wine classification techniques. Once trained, you can recommend what type(s) will be best suited for guests based on their preferences and ensure high-quality standards throughout the preparation processes.
Wine Selling
Wine selling is about relationships, especially if you’re trying to get people to spend a lot of money on a product they might not know much about. If you’ve done it before in school, like mixing cocktails, you need to build rapport and trust with customers, which takes time and patience. But how do you start selling wine? Well, tick these boxes:
- Know about different wines and what goes with what kind of food.
- Get trained in tasting techniques (what flavors are present in each sip) to know what makes one bottle better than another.
Wine Making
Winemaking is a process that requires knowledge and skill. Someone typically does it with a degree in Enology. Winemakers generally have to make good decisions quickly while working collaboratively with other people. In addition, they need to be able to research in their own time if they want their wines to stand out from the crowd.
How do you make wine? First off, you need grapes. These are usually harvested during fall or winter, depending on where you live.
Next up is crushing those grapes into juice (called must). This step can take anywhere from 5 minutes for table wines up to 2 days for high alcohol content vintages. Once crushed, there are many things’ winemakers can do, such as fermenting with yeast strains for reds/whites, barrel aging for whites/roses, and adding oak chips/staves/cubes—among other things.
Wine Educator
Wine educators are wine pros who provide training and education to consumers. They can be found teaching classes on wine tasting and pairing wines with food. At a winery, they may lead private tastings or host groups that visit the facility.
To become a successful wine educator, you should have extensive knowledge of the subject matter—much more than knowing which foods pair well with specific varieties or even basic facts about winemaking techniques and history. You should also love sharing your passion for all things vinous with others. You can work at restaurants, retail stores, vineyards, hotels, resorts, cruise ships, etc. And all you need is to be known as an expert.
Bartending
Bartenders are often the party’s life, but it takes more than just a pleasant personality to succeed in this job. You will need to be able to talk to people, perhaps, recommend wine gifts, memorize a lot of recipes, and know the history behind many drinks.
Bartending is one of the highest-paid jobs in America and one of the most lucrative globally. For instance, in New York City, bartenders can make an average salary of $38 per hour, and the price may be higher in other bars.
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Conclusion
Turning your passion into a career can be difficult but not impossible. With the right education, training, and experience, anyone can find success in these lucrative wine jobs. Whether working with grapes or people, the wine industry is an exciting place if you’re a self-motivated person who enjoys both science and artistry.