Careers

Coxs' Vineyard — Cellar Door Manager

Part-time, permanent · three-four days a week to begin, with scope to increase.
 $30–36 per hour depending on experience, plus commission once hosting independently.
Starting November 2026

Coxs' is a three-hectare single vineyard in Gibbston. Every bottle we make comes off that one site — Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris and Rosé — and we don't blend in fruit from anywhere else, which means each vintage tastes like the season it came from. We're the second generation here. The vineyard is both our home and our work.

Tastings are by appointment and capped at fifteen people. They're held in a 1960s schoolroom we relocated and restored, standing right beside the rows, which doubles as Seifert Gallery. We sell direct — cellar door, our own website, and a small number of New Zealand fine-dining restaurants. You won't find us in a supermarket. Visitors tend to leave feeling they've found something special.

What you'd actually be doing

Hosting is the heart of it and the biggest part of your week. On your days you'd manage the cellar door: preparing the room and the wines, running private tastings for anyone from complete beginners to serious collectors, reading each group and adjusting the pace and depth to suit them, then handling the bookings, orders and shipping that follow. You'd start hosting alongside Nick or Simon and move to running tastings solo as you're ready.

You'd also spend regular time in the vineyard in small, steady doses through the season, alongside our vineyard manager Nick. Pruning, shoot and crop thinning, wire lifting, a hand at harvest, with the reasoning explained as you go: why we drop that bunch and not this one, what canopy management is actually for, how ripeness gets harmonised across a block.

We're deliberate about this. For example, someone who has thinned a crop, even just a few rows, can explain vintage variation in a way that no amount of memorised tasting notes can replicate. The vineyard time is what makes the cellar door job credible. 

The room is also our family's space, and there are no cleaning staff. Floors, glassware, bathroom, the grounds by the door — everyone here chips in, and on your days it's yours to see done.

Where it goes

You'd come in as Cellar Door Manager — but the job arrives in stages rather than all at once. The first stretch is hosting alongside us and getting your Duty Manager's Certificate, which we'd fund. Once you're hosting independently, the rest of it opens out:

  • Marketing and content — taking ownership of how the business speaks publicly, drawn from real seasonal work
  • Trade sales — finding and looking after restaurant and fine-dining accounts, starting in Queenstown and Central Otago
  • Events — concerts, private functions and venue hire here at the vineyard, from enquiry through to hosting
  • Customer relationships — personal follow-up with the people you hosted yourself, using our CRM
  • Art Sales – communicating with Leah about art sales and gallery events

How quickly that happens is down to you, not to us getting busier. There's no fixed timetable and nothing is waiting on a vacancy. Someone who builds wine knowledge and customer confidence fast will find the job grows fast.

And we haven't drawn a line above the cellar door. We're a small business. What the role becomes depends on the enthusiasm of the applicant, and on how much of the commercial side of Coxs' they want to take on. We'd rather say that plainly than pretend we already know the answer.

Who we're looking for

For the right applicant, wine experience is not essential. We'd much rather teach wine to the right person than try to train temperament.

What we can't teach:

  • Real curiosity about wine — including how it's grown, not only how it's sold
  • Ease with strangers, and the knack of reading a group and changing gear accordingly
  • Happy to be outdoors and hands-on in the vines regularly
  • Noticing what needs doing without being asked
  • Care with detail — both in how the room looks and in the data and admin
  • Self-direction — you'll often be working on your own here while the rest of us are busy elsewhere on the property
  • Comfort in a small business where the standard is personal rather than corporate

The practical detail

  • Where: 178 Gibbston Back Road, Gibbston — around 25 minutes from Queenstown. There's no public transport out here, so you'll need your own.
  • Days: flexible, set around booking demand and your own availability. Vineyard time is threaded through the season in small regular amounts rather than saved up into hard weeks.
  • Hours: three-four days a week to start, with real scope to increase as the role develops.
  • Right to work: you'll need the ongoing right to work in New Zealand.
  • Reporting to: Nick Stringer day to day, Simon Cox overall.

To apply

Please send your CV and a short cover letter, outlining why you're keen to work in a small family business focussed on producing premium quality wines and authentic customer experiences.

Alongside it, a few sentences on each of the questions below.

  1. Describe a time you were the person responsible for an event or occasion. What did you learn from that?
  2. The job includes regular time out in the vines, learning the growing process. Is that something you'd look forward to, or something you'd tolerate? Both are fair answers — we'd just like to know which.
  3. Has a wine, or a food, ever connected you to the place it was grown? Tell us about it, and about how you first became interested in food and wine.
  4. Over the next few years, what are your broad ambitions in the wine industry?

Send to Nick Stringer at nick@coxsvineyard.co.nz. Applications close Sunday 11 October 2026, though we'll talk to good people as they come rather than waiting for the deadline.