© Naggiar Tasting Room

Across California, winery tasting rooms rely on motivated staff to sell their wine.

Housing costs and immigration laws are restricting workers despite the number of wineries needing staff.

Even before the 2017 and 2018 fires which caused huge damage, wineries had been hard-pressed to find good employees. Tasting room hourly rates, even at a comparatively attractive $15 an hour, won't cover the cost of the most basic apartment in plush areas like Napa, Sonoma and Carmel on the Central Coast.

After the devastating fires many of the younger, and lesser-paid, workers left Northern Californian winegrowing areas permanently to join family in other parts of the world. Political shifts in immigration policies had also diminished the supply of non-legal workers available for temporary agricultural work. With the reduced housing stock, rentals only became more expensive and previously affordable feeder communities such as the Sonoma community of Santa Rosa had much of their middle- and working-class neighborhoods decimated.

Wage changes and the housing market were a number of issues addressed by a panel of winery executives, a recruiter, a wine writer and the Mayor the Napa Valley town of Calistoga at last week's 7th Annual SF Lux Wineries Boot Camp in Yountville.

The apartment crunch

The three words that define the hiring issues behind the wine business' difficulty to find good talent are "housing, housing and housing", according to Chris Canning, the mayor of Calistoga and the former executive director of the local Chamber of Commerce.

According to yesterday's posting on ApartmentList.com the average cost of a two-bedroom rental was $1175 a month nationally in the US and $805 in the state of Alabama. Canning notes that average costs in the Napa Valley run at $2750 a month for a similar apartment before utilities are covered. It is an average annual rent that he says necessitates a salary of $100,000 or more a year.

Industry growth

While many working-class employees have been steadily fleeing the Bay Area and the Napa Valley for more affordable locales, the wine industry has been growing by leaps and bounds. Tim Carl, a columnist for the Napa Valley Register, notes that there were approximately 400 wineries in the region in the 1970s, while now there are more than 12,000.

As a result of the increase in wineries, "we have a 60 percent increase in the number of companies chasing after that employee pool", says David Newlin, president of Newlin & Associates, a recruiting firm based in California.

"We don't have the same quality of work force," these days, he adds. Part of the blame for this, according to the panel, may be because of some of the culturally dissonant-seeming Millennial job-seekers who may not shave or dress up for interviews, notes Kerry Andrews, director of the Peju tasting room in Rutherford and the winery's business development sector.

Newlin adds that it is also important to keep in mind that the wine industry currently is at historically low unemployment levels. This is the case for much of the rest of the hospitality business as well, notes Mayor Canning. That includes restaurants and coffee shops. Areas with high tourism traffic "have created too many jobs and not a sufficient inventory of workers".

A defective system

The wine industry has long sought out legal-age students, new arrivals and retirees to work in tasting rooms. They can pour on the charm, make a reasonable hourly wage and get a nice little commission if they know how to up-sell. However very few producers have set up any type of advancement route from the tasting room to the boardroom.

Wine business programs, like the one that is currently flourishing at the Wine Business Institute at the Sonoma State University and programs like the Bordeaux International Wine Institute, were few and far between even a decade ago. So the wine curious became enologists or got MBAs, did time with Procter & Gamble, and finally made it to the high-altitude vineyards to run wineries.

"Our workers aren't seeing a natural progression or a path to an executive position," says Tracy Sweeny, vice president of cellar doors and employee stores at the Napa-based Treasury Wine Estates. Newlin adds that this is because "the recruiting and hiring model is broken."

Andrews concurs. "We need to do a lot about training and provide growth opportunities." While he adds that people will commute – and often an hour or two each-way, each-day – most minimum wage and lower-income jobs won't pay enough to cover the gas and car expenses.

Carl notes, ironically, that the model for progression in the wine business is to leave the winery where you were employed in order to start your own. It is a career trajectory that does not bode well for established wineries and the career trajectories for their staff.

Canning says that another alternative for staffing for a variety of gigs at wineries could be "the enormous pool of high school candidates who want to be involved when they are young". According to a drinks attorney, those of less than legal age could be used as employees as long as they are supervised by someone over the age of 21. It is an employee source that is probably well worth looking into in the future.