Harvest Cellar Hand - Inniskillin (Intern Contract)

As Canada’s original estate winery, we're an industry pioneer committed to the production of premium wines made from quality grapes grown in Canada for 50 years. With wineries in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario and the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, we're leading the way with our full collection of world renowned, award-winning VQA table wines and Icewines crafted by progressive, artisanal winemakers. We are hiring 6 positions.

Position: Cellar Intern / Lab intern

Start date: Beginning of September 2025 thru to November 2025

Reporting to: Nicholas Gizuk – Winemaker & Chris Canavan - Assistant Winemaker

Duties/Responsibilities

Crushing and Receiving grapes- we average 1200 tons a year. You will see medium scale grape receiving and processing, running the crusher/de-stemmer and receiving hopper.

Additions- will be a huge task, you will gain experience with multiple types of additions for juice, must, ferments and possibly finished wines.

Inoculations- You will be ask to aid in or complete inoculations with proper training and guidance from our staff.

Pump overs /pulse air – We maintain a daily cap management sheet, we use a pulse air system for that majority of our reds, manual pump over, automatic punchdown tanks, rotating fermenters and manual punchdowns in bins.

Cleaning – Cleaning is a huge part of making great wine!! We strive to keep everything as clean as possible always. You will be trained in cleaning various sized tanks, totes, bins, crushing equipment, barrels, and floors.

Barrel work – You could be involved in barrel maintenance, sulphur, cleaning, rehydrating, filling and storing of red/white barrels. We still manage quite a large barrel room. Could be involved in receiving/ preparing new barrels for production.

Daily fermentation checks - you will be involved in checking tank temps, barrel ferment checks, red fermenters and bins and reporting to the winemaking team any issues and concerns.

Questions- We encourage anyone to ask questions, you will be working alongside some experienced people, we want you to gain something out of it. No question is too silly, we will always answer.

Eligibility Requirements

Highly motivated to work hard, enthusiastic and passionate about wine

Good communication skills and ability to work with a team

Willing to learn basic winemaking techniques and procedures

Need to be punctual, organized, willing to go above and beyond

Driver’s license, and own transportation required

Any lab skills are an asset

Fluent in English, 2nd language is an asset.

Forklift license an asset

Other Considerations

Some competitive advantages of this winery or important details to note

We have a few pieces of newer wine technology student will get to see and possibly trained on.

Large 8 membrane crossflow filter

Juclas ceramic disk lees filter 10m2 unit

Compensation Information: $19-23/hr based on experience

Harvest schedule – we run a split shift during the harvest, Days and Afternoons, shifts will be 8-10 hours depending on work load that day. We do pay overtime after 44 hours

Harvest pay will depend on experience the cellars, we are willing to train but all candidates from Niagara college should have a general understanding of equipment and cellar procedures from volunteering in the teaching winery.

We are committed to establishing a qualified workforce that reflects the diverse population it serves and we encourage applications from all qualified individuals. We are also committed to preventing and removing barriers to employment for people with disabilities, and we invite you to inform us should you have any accessibility or accommodation needs.

Industries:Food & Beverages

Function: Others