{"id":4781,"date":"2020-06-17T10:32:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-17T13:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/domainebousquet.com\/?p=4781"},"modified":"2020-06-17T10:32:00","modified_gmt":"2020-06-17T13:32:00","slug":"no-tasting-room-no-problem-wineries-train-hospitality-staffs-to-work-the-vineyards-by-stacy-briscoe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/domainebousquet.com\/en\/no-tasting-room-no-problem-wineries-train-hospitality-staffs-to-work-the-vineyards-by-stacy-briscoe\/","title":{"rendered":"No Tasting Room, No Problem: Wineries Train Hospitality Staffs to Work the Vineyards BY STACY BRISCOE"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

\"Vineyard<\/p>\n

Winery tour guide Diana Gonzalez at Dos B\u00fahos \/ Photo courtesy Vi\u00f1edo Dos B\u00fahos<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s been almost three months since wineries around the world closed tasting room doors<\/a>, leading to the suspension\u2014whether temporary or permanent\u2014of many hospitality workers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

A few were able to shift their skillset into the digital sphere; others have filled in as couriers. But some wineries have trained their hospitality staffs in other areas of the wine trade.<\/p>\n

By bringing their front-of-house teams into the field to help with leafing, wire removal and other agricultural pursuits, these wineries impart useful skill sets to those who might have been otherwise unemployed during the shutdowns.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen shelter-in-place took effect, we did curbside for, like, a day,\u201d says Paul Clifton, director of winemaking for\u00a0Hahn Family Wines<\/a>\u00a0in the\u00a0Santa Lucia Highlands, CA<\/a>. \u201cWe didn\u2019t feel right about exposing our employees because we didn\u2019t know how bad this thing could get.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Working<\/a><\/p>\n

A tasting room staffer helps shoot thinning vines at Hahn Family Wines \/ Courtesy Hahn Family Wines<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Wanting to keep his staff safe\u2014and employed\u2014Clifton decided to train his five full-time tasting room employees on basic, but very essential, springtime vineyard duties: thinning\/suckering, leafing and wire moving.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hope is that even if the tasting room opens, they go back out there,\u201d Clifton adds, stating that he plans to keep one acre of vines reserved for the hospitality crew to maintain through to harvest as well as the actual winemaking. \u201cThere are a lot of winemakers who haven\u2019t even done that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michelle Aydelotte, general manager of\u00a0Bodega Dos B\u00fahos<\/a>\u00a0in San Miguel de Allende,\u00a0Mexico<\/a>, also found ways to pivot to maintain both employees and vineyard operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew that our staff would be unable to find more work during these times and most likely would not have any savings at all,\u201d she says. \u201cHow could we let them go? How could we not stand by them?\u201d<\/p>\n

The estate recently increased its vine plantings by 27 acres over the last three years, so Aydelotte\u2019s staff learned how to nurture new, young vines, which includes selecting single canes for future trunks, staking the thin trunks for positioning and protection, and forming what will eventually become\u00a0double cordon trellising<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was amazing is that we taught them very difficult tasks that normally would be done by a vineyard management crew,\u201d says Aydelotte, admitting she was at first hesitant about the cross-departmental training. \u201cBut they did [those tasks] just like those with years of experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aydelotte plans to make vineyard training an annual spring tradition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the biggest challenge was making the psychological commitment from indoor to outdoors, especially as it is now early winter,\u201d says Bruce Dukes, chief winemaker of\u00a0Domaine Naturaliste<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Margaret River, Australia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of his three full-time hospitality staff, two opted to transition into the vineyard, \u201cembracing the major challenge with gusto,\u201d he says. Once the cellar door reopens, Dukes plans to keep the hospitality team involved in vineyard management, \u201calbeit on a smaller scale.\u201d<\/p>\n

He calls the cross-department training \u201can opportunity created by COVID.\u201d It has given his hospitality team a greater appreciation of vineyard work and an emotional connection to the vines. \u201cI believe you can only get an emotional attachment to vines by having the opportunity to work with them,\u201d says Dukes. \u201c[They] will always have an attachment to the plot of\u00a0Cabernet<\/a>\u00a0vines they trained.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the Uco Valley of\u00a0Mendoza, Argentina<\/a>, family-owned\u00a0Domaine Bousquet<\/a>\u2019s hospitality sector includes both a restaurant and the winery tasting room. \u201cNot one employee was fired or suspended,\u201d says Co-owner Anne Bousquet.<\/p>\n

Not only were hospitality staff trained in other sectors of the business, including vineyard and winemaking operations, the estate also opened up three new positions for their bilingual tour guides: business intelligence, sales assistance and e-commerce.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are new projects that we always wanted to start but never had the time,\u201d says Ignacio Marinez Landa, marketing and communication director. According to Landa, the U.S. is Domaine Bousquet\u2019s largest export market, but previously had very little support in sales, market research, or e-commerce. In fact, the company only recently made online sales available to their U.S. market.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will ask our tour guides if they want to go back to hospitality or stay in these positions once we reopen,\u201d says Bousquet. \u201cIf they wish to go back, we will staff these positions with new hires.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
Published on June 16, 2020<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Winery tour guide Diana Gonzalez at Dos B\u00fahos \/ Photo courtesy Vi\u00f1edo Dos B\u00fahos   It\u2019s been almost three months since wineries around the world closed tasting room doors, leading to the suspension\u2014whether temporary or permanent\u2014of many hospitality workers. A few were able to shift their skillset into the digital sphere; others have filled in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/domainebousquet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/domainebousquet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/domainebousquet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/domainebousquet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/domainebousquet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/domainebousquet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/domainebousquet.com\/en\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/domainebousquet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/domainebousquet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/domainebousquet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}