Join Our Passionate Team at Ridge Vineyards: Crafting Exceptional Wines, Connecting with Nature.
Explore Opportunities Across Roles and Embrace Our Commitment to Excellence and Sustainability.
OBJECTIVE:Assume the management, maintenance, and leadership of all aspects of the Paso Robles Retail Department in the absence of the Manager. Responsibilities include guest service, visit and event coordination, sales, education, membership acquisition, inventory control, daily financial management, and staff supervision. The Assistant Manager will also assist the Manager in hosting on- and off-site events.
This role serves as the primary wine tasting host for our Paso Robles satellite tasting room. The Assistant Manager will lead daily guest experiences, ensuring an elevated and engaging atmosphere that reflects the brand. Part-time staff will provide support as needed, with the Assistant Manager taking ownership of all day-to-day hosting responsibilities.
ESSENTIAL DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES
Personnel
- Exemplify excellent leadership qualities, leading by example, and inspiring achievement.
- Assume a leadership role in creating and executing new and ongoing staff training initiatives.
- Involvement in staff meetings and tastings: regularly contributing topics of concern or interest regarding financial performance, wine industry news, tasting room best practices, food pairing, and social media.
- Assist in developing goals and incentives for the Retail Sales staff and provide input for staff reviews.
- Contribute to the hiring process for new team members.
- Assist with staff scheduling, including but not limited to, weekend and weekday shifts, training opportunities, and staff meetings.
Operations
- Support the Retail Sales operations as necessary including: answering phones, email, voicemail, exception reports, department projects, processing orders, and updating customer records.
- Assist with maintaining physical organization and cleanliness of all hospitality-related areas including case goods room, tasting room retail areas, back bar service, and storage.
- Ensure that all aspects of shipping logistics (i.e., entering orders, packing orders, making labels, tracking, updating compliance and policies in the tasting room), are fulfilled appropriately.
- Ensure that daily cash management and reconciliations, including POS operations, management and maintenance, are accurately performed.
- Assist with wine and non-wine inventories, ensuring S.O.P.’s are consistently followed.
- Take a lead role in the utilization and understanding of Salesforce.com to help achieve departmental objectives.
Guest Service & Hospitality
- Host guests visiting our property, coordinating with internal stakeholders, when necessary, to ensure each experience at the tasting room is innovative, engaging, and sets a high standard that reinforces our brand positioning. Hosting duties include but are not limited to:
- Hosting tastings
- Accurately coordinating and scheduling visit details.
- Securing wines and any accompaniments: setup and teardown of tastings.
- As the primary host at the Paso Robles satellite tasting room, lead all guest tasting experiences and ensure the space consistently reflects our hospitality standards.
- Provide follow-up and feedback when appropriate. Assume a leadership role in coordinating and executing VIP consumer and trade visits to our property. This may include hosting specialty presentations and educational seminars (food and wine pairings, sensory analysis, etc.).
- Maintain an up-to-date knowledge of the various unique selling points of our products, properties, and production teams – accurately communicate this with customers.
- Participate in, and contribute to, strategic planning sessions related to experience design and implementation.
- Provide ongoing support to the Retail Sales team by helping process walkout orders, pack wines, clean glassware, stocking, input new membership enrollments, etc.
Key Events
- Contribute to the planning and execution of major annual events held at our property. Pour wine and greet guests at major annual events held at our property (including consumer tastings, wine club events, hospitality open houses, and wine release parties, among others).
- Periodically pour our wine and greet guests at key consumer and trade tasting events throughout Paso Robles and beyond, as needed.
Key Internal Partners
- Partner closely with marketing team, production team, and wholesale sales team, as necessary.
- Partner closely with principals, their executive assistants, and winemakers to ensure communication of all key details about guests they may be hosting/co-hosting.
Research & Analytics
- Acquire, maintain, manage, and track information obtained through guest interaction (industry trends, economic data, product feedback) to support strategic planning.
- Research purchase and portfolio history prior to the guests’ arrival, when possible, to determine the most appropriate guest experience and collaborate with the respective managers, as needed.
- Assist with community outreach and gatekeeper relationship building.
- Maintain accurate and up-to-date customer records and history in our various systems (Trade visits > CRM, Consumer > Commerce7, etc.).
NON-ESSENTIAL DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES
- Performs all related duties as assigned.
QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENTS
- Undergraduate college degree preferred; minimum two years’ junior college.
- Minimum three years’ experience in the luxury wine industry with emphasis on exceptional guest service.
- Exceptional communication skills, both written and oral.
- Excellent organizational skills.
- Collaborative/team operational skills.
- Ability to make empowered decisions that positively affect the customer’s experience.
- Computer proficiency: Word, Excel, Outlook, Commerce7, Tock, etc.
- Excellent attention to detail.
- Ability to travel throughout Paso Robles and occasionally beyond, as needed.
- Ability to work evenings and weekends, as needed.
Salary: $60,000 to $65,000 - depending on experience
