Site Supervisor (Wine Jobs: Vineyards & Cellars )

  Roebuck Estates (http://www.roebuckestates.co.uk)

  Ticehurst, East Sussex, England

Southern England Wines own a collection of vineyard estates in exceptional locations in Sussex.  We are a new and rapidly expanding company committed to producing high-quality English sparkling wines.  Our dedication and passion for creating the very best wine starts in the vineyard and is carried through every stage in the winemaking process.  Our award-winning Roebuck Estates wines recently picked up several prestigious trophies in the WineGB Awards. 

We are seeking a full-time Site Supervisor in Ticehurst, East Sussex.  They will work closely with the management team, in-house and sub-contracted vineyard teams to oversee all elements of viticulture and ultimately achieve healthy vines, a well-performing vineyard and a high-quality crop. 

Site Supervisor job description:

The right candidate must possess the experience and ambition to continually elevate and develop the fruit quality of our vineyard.  A practical and thorough understanding of cool-climate viticultural practices is a must.  

They will need to be able to adapt to the challenging growing conditions of English viticulture. Allied to this, a strong history of management and high degree of organisation will be needed.

The role also demands that the successful candidate will need to adopt flexibility in working hours throughout busy periods during the growing season.  A can-do attitude and proactive mindset are also crucial.  From time to time there will be customers, trade visitors, press and journalists visiting, so the successful candidate needs to be comfortable with being ‘customer’ facing on occasion.

In the vineyard, duties would include:

• All aspect of viticultural work in and around the vineyard sites

• Supervision of contract labour, pruning, tying down, bud rubbing, leaf stripping, crop tinning and harvesting

• Other tasks around the vineyard where necessary i.e. strimming, trellis repairs

• Data collection– weather data, crop estimates, bunch counting, yield estimation, grape analysis, disease monitoring, labour efficiency analysis etc

• Oversight of all viticultural Health & Safety practices and maintenance of those practices

• Tractor operations 

Qualifications and skills include:

• Experience of vineyard establishment

• Viticulture background

• At least 3 years tractor driving with PA1 and ideally both PA2 and PA3 spray tickets.

• Experience in managing in house and contracted workers

• A valid UK driving licence

• Full eligibility to work in the UK

• Organised, problem solving, attention to detail

• Good communication skills and accuracy in record keeping

• Comfortable with being “customer facing” 

• Experience using MS Word and Excel

• Forklift user qualification (preferred but not essential)

• Towing license (preferred but not essential)

• Mechanically minded (preferred but not essential)

Salary range offered between £25k p/a and £30k+ p/a dependent upon relevant experience
•Generous holiday allowances
•Pension scheme
•Discretionary bonus scheme
•All PPE (personal protective equipment) provided

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