General Manager Job Description

How I Got Into This Role

I'm the general manager of small family winery in Sonoma County. I chose this job after a birthday trip to Northern California and a passion for wine. I decided that I wanted to move out here and learn the wine industry. 

General Manager Requirements

So here at a small winery, the requirements weren't many. It was just the ability to wear many hats and work hard and learn as much as you could. General managers at larger wineries, however, would likely have gone to maybe a management program. They would have to have leadership skills to run a team in a tasting room as well as production at larger establishments. 

Winery General Manager Average Day

The average day here for me revolves around a lot of customer outreach and answering emails from customers, usually club members. Then it kind of morphs into handling any guests that come into the tasting room and also helping the wine maker with anything that they might need, and reporting all things up to the owner.

General Manager Pros and Cons

Pros to this job is working in a beautiful place, being connected to nature with agriculture, and then serving up delicious wine to lots of interesting people that visit from all over the country. Any cons to this job would likely just be that you do have to wear a lot of hats, which is fun and interesting, but a lot of times that can be stressful, especially in busier times of the season. 

Tips for Getting Started

If you wanted to get into winery and running a small winery or even a large winery, the best thing to do is just to get the experience, always starting out in a tasting room, shadowing a tasting room manager, and then getting yourself into that position and then trying to really shadow a general manager of the winery. Really the important thing is to get your foot in the door just by being extroverted, willing to work with people, and again, really willing to learn. 

Career Tip From My Experience

What I would have done slightly differently is probably educated myself a little bit better, whether that would have been with some of the local junior college classes having to do with more of the business side of wine. I was familiar with wine and I can work with people easily, but running the business side, I would say really get yourself familiar with running a business.