Vice President of Winemaking

Job Description:

We are seeking a Vice President of Winemaking to lead our winemaking and winery operations. This executive role is responsible for driving quality excellence while ensuring efficient, well-aligned production across a large, multi-brand organization.
The ideal candidate will bring extensive experience in large-scale production environments, along with a track record of progressive leadership growth. This includes deep expertise in long-range planning, capital strategy, and executive decision-making, as well as a proven ability to partner cross-functionally with finance, sales, marketing, and supply chain teams.
This leader will play a critical role in aligning production, quality, resources, and capital investments with company objectives. The Vice President will partner closely with the President, Founding Winemaker, and executive leadership team to shape and execute both annual and long-term strategies that support quality, growth, and operational excellence.
Strong candidates will have no less than 10 years of senior leadership experience, with demonstrated success leading teams and operations of significant scale and complexity.

The ideal candidate will bring strong capabilities in the following:

Strategic Leadership & Enterprise Planning

Serves as a core member of the executive leadership team, partnering with the President and senior executives to define and execute enterprise-wide strategy.
Leads the long-range vision and strategic roadmap for winemaking and winery operations across a multi-brand, multi-tier portfolio.
Translates corporate strategy into scalable production, quality, and operational frameworks that support sustained growth and market expansion.
Directs capital allocation and major investment decisions, ensuring resources are deployed to maximize return, capability, and competitive advantage.
Aligns annual operating plans, production forecasts, and capital expenditures with enterprise priorities, volume growth targets, and profitability goals.
Drives cross-functional alignment between operations, finance, sales, and marketing to ensure integrated business planning.

Winemaking, Production & Quality Governance

Provides executive oversight and governance of all winemaking, processing, and bottling operations across multiple facilities and brands.
Establishes and enforces enterprise-wide wine style, quality, and technical standards to ensure consistency at scale.
Leads and aligns site winemakers and production leaders to deliver against brand strategy, quality benchmarks, and operational targets.
Implements standardized systems, processes, and metrics to ensure scalability, repeatability, and operational control across diverse production environments.
Oversees enterprise bottling strategy and network optimization, ensuring efficient scheduling, capacity utilization, and supply chain coordination.
Champions a culture of quality excellence supported by robust QA systems, audits, and continuous improvement initiatives.

Global Grape Sourcing & Supply Strategy

Leads enterprise grape sourcing strategy across owned vineyards, long-term contracts, and third-party suppliers.
Develops diversified sourcing models that mitigate risk, ensure supply continuity, and support portfolio needs across regions and varietals.
Aligns grape procurement with long-term demand planning, innovation pipelines, and financial targets.
Builds strategic partnerships with growers and viticulture teams to drive quality, sustainability, and supply reliability at scale.
Anticipates climate, market, and supply chain risks and implements proactive mitigation strategies.

Operational Excellence & Financial Performance

Oversees large-scale production operations, ensuring alignment between volume, cost, quality, and service objectives.
Leads enterprise budget planning, cost management, and capital investment strategy for multiple sites and facilities.
Drives operational excellence initiatives, including process optimization, automation, and continuous improvement programs.
Monitors and manages enterprise KPIs such as cost of goods sold, yield efficiency, throughput, inventory management, and capacity utilization.
Partners closely with commercial leadership to align supply with demand, optimize inventory, and support go-to-market strategies.

Innovation, Portfolio Strategy & Growth Enablement

Leads enterprise innovation strategy, including new product development, category expansion, and portfolio optimization.
Partners with marketing, sales, and consumer insights teams to align production capabilities with evolving market trends and customer preferences.
Evaluates and implements advanced winemaking technologies, digital tools, and data-driven decision-making systems.
Balances premiumization, scale efficiencies, and innovation to strengthen market position and drive revenue growth.

Executive People Leadership & Organizational Scale

Leads a large, multi-layered organization of winemaking, production, and operations professionals across multiple sites.
Builds a strong leadership bench by developing senior leaders, driving succession planning, and fostering organizational capability.
Establishes a high-performance culture focused on accountability, collaboration, safety, and continuous improvement.
Drives organizational alignment through clear communication of strategy, priorities, and performance expectations.

External Leadership & Corporate Representation

Represents the company at an executive level with industry organizations, global partners, media, and key stakeholders.
Enhances brand reputation and corporate credibility through thought leadership and industry engagement.
Influences industry standards, innovation, and best practices through active participation in professional forums and networks.

**Compensation will be competitive and aligned with the candidate’s experience, skills, and qualifications**

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