Help! What Should I Wear to Work in a Wine Cellar
So you’re working your first wine harvest! You’re excited and doe-eyed and can’t wait to (figuratively, hopefully) get in there and stomp those grapes with your bare feet.
If you Google “wine harvest attire” it will return a plethora of semi-useless results. Trust me, I checked multiple times. Take some lessons from me, a current first time harvest cellar worker, and learn from my infinite wisdom aka all the mistakes that I made in packing.
If you’re looking for a more current take, with actual links to things included, check out the updated winery workwear guide here.
And if you’re looking for an idea of generally what you should bring to your first wine harvest, read our guide on gear needed to survive a wine harvest here.
Please note that I do have affiliate links sprinkled throughout my posts (including the below) that are in no way paid. I do get some commissions if you click through and ultimately make a purchase, however that is at no cost to you so I appreciate the pay-if-forward (insert cheesy cutesy smile here).
Now, the content you came here for…
Here is my take on what to wear to work a wine harvest:
Your clothes will get fucked up.
Plan accordingly and bring things you aren’t going to freak out about if you catch a sleeve on a metal frame and it tears a little. If you even have a flicker in your mind about bringing a Tide Pen for something you are about to pack it’s probably best that you just don’t take it. I personally sought out cheap functional second-hand clothes on Poshmark before my winemaking adventure started and it was probably the best decision / one of the only things I did right in preparation for the upcoming harvest season.
Consider the fact that you might get the night shift.
In a climate like Napa where the temperature plummets 20+ degrees in a day, you might want to pack more than light sweatshirts and t-shirts for when you’re standing on top of a crush pad at six in the morning and your socks and pants and five layers of shirts are wet from cleaning some grape particles off a press with a garden hose. Fingerless gloves and hats are super clutch for scenarios like this as well, just saying.
Jeans or athletic hiking pants are the way to go.
Personally I prefer the latter. As a female, hiking pants means more real pockets to carry all of your necessities with you, like a flashlight, walkie talkie, pens, tape measure, etc. Us ladies all know that jeans made for girls always have tiny or even faux pockets (read: no room to carry basically anything). Hiking pants also dry quicker when you get an accidental soaking / find yourself kneeling in a puddle of grape juice trying to figure out why a pump is not working.
Speaking of wet clothes, always bring a change of clothes, or two.
For those moments when you find yourself covered in wine after doing something as basic as a tank transfer, or after you find that you accidentally dunked your sweatshirt into a mucky bentonite solution and it’s now dripping down your arm, or for after you enter a confined 17 ton press with a super-powered power washer. Even a clean (read: not soaking wet) pair of shoes in your car will unexpectedly brighten your day on more than one occasion. Also, socks - cannot emphasize enough how far a dry pair of socks goes toward making long shifts bearable.
Bring enough pants to get you through one 6-day work week.
Assume you’ll be a disaster and get all sorts of shit all over your pants each and every day that you work. Think you’ll just pop those puppies into the wash midweek? A 12-hour shift coupled with a touch of exhaustion might change your mind and have you rewearing obviously dirty pants for days on end.
Steel toe boots are your friend.
Seriously, do you have any idea how heavy 30 foot rubber-coated hoses that are meant to withstand thousands of pounds of pressure are? Now picture that same rubber hose falling on top of your delicate little toes. Pro tip: when purchasing shoes, they actually need to say “steel toe.'“ Most will even specify construction-grade, etc. If they do not say anything like this then news flash!, they are not steel toe boots.
All the cool kids (and wannabe winemakers) wear Blundstones or Redbacks.
Seriously, these guys dominate the market share on shoes for cellar hands and winemakers. Why are they so awesome? Honestly, jury’s still out on this one. But regardless I still purchased a cute pair of Blundies myself. Note: “cute” pairs of cellar-appropriate footwear are incredibly hard to come by, so start the search early if you’re like me and the idea of paying $150+ for a pair of ugly-as-sin boots makes you cringe.
Get some insoles.
I’ll say it again for emphasis - Get. Some. Insoles. Your feet will thank you after after torturing them through some insole-less 12-hour shifts with about 30 minutes total of time off your feet.
Happy Harvesting!
P.S. - Working the night shift? Check out these tips in my other post here!
P.P.S. - If you want something easy to click through with actual links to the items (and more) mentioned above, check out the updated guide on what to wear to work in a wine cellar here.
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