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Study and learn, and explore pathways to employment

At school

If you're interested in pursuing a career in the wine sector, there are several subjects that can be helpful to study in school, including chemistry, biology, maths, agriculture, technologies, hospitality and tourism, marketing and business, food science, and languages.

Schools

There are some secondary schools across Australia that teach agriculture, viticulture, winemaking, and wine business subjects.

Australian Capital Territory

New South Wales

Queensland

South Australia

Victoria

Request in-classroom activities
Ask your teacher to look at the various resources and activities available under the For schools and teachers section on this website. There is something for everyone: from learning about healthy soils and the importance of earthworms to fermentation experiments in your science lab.
Request a speaker from the sector, or an excursion
If you’d like to hear from someone working in the sector, speak to your teacher or career advisor and ask them to email us at research@wineaustralia.com. We’ll help them organise a visit or a virtual session. If that is not an option, the next best thing is for you to explore the virtual tour "A day in the life of a wine grape".
Australian schools wine competition
This is an annual event that lifts the profile schools who make wine, enabling the school’s wines to be judged by a professional judging panel, promoting the vocations of viticulture and winemaking and are an educational experience for the students involved.
Visit

Pathways and tertiary studies

A wide range of qualifications and short courses are available from certificate to postgraduate level across the vocational education and training system (TAFE), agricultural colleges and universities.

Depending on your chosen field, you could study for a Bachelors, Masters or Doctorate Degree at University or an Agricultural College – or you could progressively work through the various Certificates in Viticulture or Food Processing (Wine) at TAFE or other Registered Training Organisations while ‘on-the-job’.

Vocational courses take account of the work you do – the practical experience you gain at work and the skills you use – and often they’re done during work time with financial support from your employer. Either way, you’ll be nationally accredited. That means, if you choose to travel, you take your qualifications with you.

Lists are provided for information purposes only; they are not recommendations and may not cover all available options at a point in time. Students are advised to conduct their own research when planning study and career opportunities. Lists compiled December 2023.

Selection of undergraduate post-school study options

South Australia

University of Adelaide: Bachelor of Viticulture and Oenology 

TAFE SA: Viticulture and Wine Industry Operations


New South Wales

Charles Sturt University: Bachelor of Viticulture  and Bachelor of Wine Science 

TAFE NSW: Wine Industry Operations and Sydney Wine Academy 


Victoria

Melbourne Polytechnic: Viticulture and Winemaking

GO TAFE Victoria: Viticulture and Winemaking 


Queensland

University of Southern Queensland: Bachelor of Science (Wine Science) and Diploma of Wine 

Griffith University: Wine Studies 

Bond University: Wine Studies


Tasmania

University of Tasmania: Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture 

TAFE Tasmania: Wine Industry Operations 


Western Australia

TAFE Western Australia: Diploma of Viticulture 


Other sites for planning your study and career opportunities

Good Universities Guide >

Career Harvest>

My Future>

Your Career>

Australian Apprenticeship Pathways>

Scholarships

There are various viticulture and wine specific scholarships available. As these are offered by individual universities or others including the sector, we encourage you to do your own research. This list is a start point.

University

University of Adelaide

Charles Sturt University

TAFE

TAFE South Australia

TAFE NSW

GoTAFE Victoria

I’m keen, where do I start? Employment pathways

How to do a vintage?

‘Doing a vintage’ is a great introduction to a career in the industry, and many students as well as people already working in the industry benefit from doing a vintage in different regions across Australia, or overseas.
Download the flyer

Ag Gap Year

Consider doing a gap-year program after school to kick-start your career.

If you’re aged 17 to 25 this unique program provides you with a paid job, training and development, not to mention the opportunity to build networks within the industry and with other young people working across all agriculture industries around Australia.

Apply now

Seasonal employment

From grape harvesting in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales to Margaret River in Western Australia … you could be among one of the many people who find work each year helping to bring in Australia’s wine grape, fruit, or vegetable harvests.
Search the Harvest Trail

Jobs and employment

There are two leading job sites for exploring roles across the wine industry, including roles available during vintage/harvest as well as graduate and internship opportunities.

Wine and Spirit Education Trust

Once you know a career in the wine sector is for you, and depending on your role, you may need, or want, to gain qualifications through the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET®).

One of the key reasons for the creation of a WSET qualification was to provide a systematic approach to tasting wine across the wine trade, so that wine professionals could speak about wine with a common language. 

Visit WSET
Did you know?
  • Vitis vinifera is the name of the common grape vine. There are now more than 10,000 varieties of winegrapes worldwide but only a few dozen are widely used for commercial production. Many of these varieties have been developed using grafting and other methods to produce hybrids. 
  • The sector depends on the correct identification of different grape varieties and clones of grapevines. Many scientific methods are used to do this including microbiology, chemistry and ampelography. 
  • Research conducted by scientists at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) suggests that extremely rare and independent mutations in two genes of red grapes [VvMYBA1 and VvMYBA2] produced a single white grapevine that was the parent of almost all the world's white grape varieties. If only one gene had been mutated, most grapes would still be red and we would not have the more than 3000 white grape cultivars available today.

For any feedback or to report broken links across this site please email research@wineaustralia.com.