How to find a wine job in Bordeaux

Looking for a wine job in Bordeaux? Good for you. There’s a variety of wine business, hospitality, and technical schools, and each tasks its students with getting out there and finding work. It’s also a pretty city surrounded by some of the world’s best vineyards, so it attracts working wine industry professionals from home and abroad, too.

Finding a wine job in Bordeaux can be trickier than it seems, even for experienced professionals.

Why I wanted a wine job in Bordeaux

I moved to Bordeaux in 2015 after three years in wine retail in my native Dublin, Ireland. It was through retailing that I fell in love with wine, though I felt that enough was enough and I wanted to do something else. I opted to pursue an MBA in wine marketing and management, one of several such courses offered at the city’s various business schools. The program was taught entirely in English and had a mix of French and international students.

As part of the program, I had to secure a six-month wine internship or work placement, known in France as a stage. There was no obligation to do this in Bordeaux, though I felt it would be a wasted opportunity to go elsewhere.

In the end, I couldn’t have been happier with the internship I did find. I joined the commercial team at Château Palmer, one of the leading wine estates in the region. It was a fantastic opportunity to work with and learn from a great team.

The process of actually finding work was a lot more complicated than I’d anticipated, however – and my experience wasn’t unique.

How to find a wine job in Bordeaux

As an international wine business student with little French and few professional contacts, I found the jobs market in Bordeaux to be tough. The process was more laborious and took longer than I had expected. If you’re considering a similar path, I’ve put together a few tips borne out of trial and error, frustration and, ultimately, a winning combination of naive optimism and stubborn perseverance.

1. Be realistic

Never sell yourself short, but a little self-awareness and rudimentary understanding of the Bordeaux wine job market will go a long way. There are a lot of wine students and other qualified candidates out there. Even entry-level internships have a lot of competition. Take stock of what you’ve done and what you can do, and keep that in mind when deciding the sort of positions for which you’re going to apply.

Certain things, like your ability to speak French, are often deal-breakers for employers. I slowly came to accept this after deciding I’d received quite enough very polite rejection emails en Français. The good people at Baron Philippe de Rothschild were even courteous enough to send me physical letters in the post. If I’d been a little more realistic a little earlier, I would’ve saved myself some time and effort – and saved a certain Baron some petty cash.

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2. Monitor wine jobs boards

It’s an obvious one, but go where the jobs are. General job sites are OK, wine industry job sites are better. Vitijob is probably the best bet for Bordeaux wine jobs. It covers the rest of France and some international stuff, too. You can filter by region, type of work, contract and all that stuff.

If I were doing it today, I would focus on the most recent postings and wouldn’t waste too much time on older jobs. The chances are that they’ve been filled, or that the recruiter already has an inbox full of potential candidates. Some business schools have their own internal jobs boards, so take a look at those too.

3. Research potential employers in Bordeaux

Developing an understanding of the Bordeaux wine trade will help you navigate it most effectively. A little work can yield a lot of handy information about Bordeaux wine companies. Google is your best friend here and will help you find things like this list of Bordeaux négociants, including contact details. This is very useful if you aren’t applying for an advertised job and are instead looking to work at a certain company, by sending what they call a “spontaneous” application.

Be aware that négociants vary widely in terms of size and speciality. Some are large, internationally-focused organisations with lots of employees in France and abroad. Others are small operations of one or two people. I suggest that you do some more research into individual companies before sending out generic emails in bulk.

4. Target the right people

Particularly for spontaneous applications, I recommend that you do a little research and, at the very least, find out the name of the individual to whom you’re writing. If you are looking for work as a wine brand manager, you should probably be targeting the person in charge of that company’s marketing department or the general manager. Writing to the cellar master or the finance manager is unlikely to work in your favour.

A quick Google or a glance at the company’s website will often do the trick. The more you know about the person, the more you can customise your application and the better your chances become of them opening or reading your email. Keep in mind that business correspondence in France is a formal affair, so always err on the side of caution there.

5. Don’t get lost in translation

If you speak French: Write your CV and cover letter in French, following French formatting, and skip this point.

If you don’t, be careful. Writing a wine job application in French (or having an ami do it for you) will boost your chances of it being opened, read and your candidature considered. Of course, what happens next is that a French person will call you. If you can’t carry a conversation in French, don’t waste your time or theirs.

On a related note, do yourself a favour and resolve to learn French dès que possible!

6. Visit Bordeaux wineries

If you’re physically in Bordeaux, hit the road and start visiting some wineries. This is the most effective way to get a sense of Bordeaux and its appellations to understand what makes the place special. Very quickly, you’ll start to get a sense of wineries and the sort of jobs they offer.

Gather a group of friends, classmates or strangers and organise as many châteaux visits as you can. Try to mix it up between big and small producers to get a more accurate sense of what things are like. There’s nothing wrong with visiting Lafite, but make sure you see Listrac, too. If you have a particular interest in a specialist area, for example, vineyard management or digital communications, say so in advance and you just might get to meet somebody who does that sort of thing day in and day out.

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Whether you meet the owner, the winemaker or an intern, each visit is an opportunity to make new professional contacts, and that’s never a bad thing as a job seeker. Every visit is a chance to meet a potential employer or a future colleague. I don’t advocate carrying CVs, but certainly, have some business cards to hand or use LinkedIn’s QR code feature to connect with whomever you meet.

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7. Ask your wine business school for help

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance that you’re a current or future student at a wine business school like INSEEC, KEDGE, Vatel or IPC. Bordeaux’s various wine schools have a lot of ties to the local industry, and you should take full advantage of that. These schools aren’t cheap, so make them work for you.

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Visit your careers office or equivalent and discuss your experience with them. They’ll have all sorts of advice, probably better than mine, and also may be well placed to know of upcoming opportunities that never make it to jobs boards. Asking for a simple introduction to a well-placed wine professional can make a big difference.

8. Talk to your peers

Bordeaux operates like a small town sometimes. Word of mouth carries weight, so speak with your classmates and other contacts.

Chatting with a classmate some years ago, I mentioned that I’d applied to a particular company and hadn’t heard back. She told me that the person I had contacted had left the company sometime before, and they were quietly looking for a replacement. The website had evidently not been updated, and my email had never been read. I re-sent my application to a director and got the interview within a day or two. It didn’t work out in the end, but it was close. It never hurts to talk!

9. Be persistent

Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel didn’t give up, and neither should you. Don’t be afraid of rejection, and don’t let rejection get to you. What’s worse, and a lot more common, is to simply get no reply. Get over it. Figure out what isn’t working and try something new. As tempting as it may be, don’t give up. Keep applying. There’s an element of luck involved, and it can come down to being in the right place at the right time. Cheat the system by making sure you’re in lots of places at any one time!