Pieter Badenhorst

Maintaining a spotless wine cellar requires a comprehensive management plan, which includes structural design, equipment sanitation, environmental controls and routine microbial monitoring.

At some point it becomes necessary to address repeated mistakes or poor behaviour through an intervention. However overwhelming, time-consuming or even frustrating the process can be, it is critically important to tackle poor performance early and thoroughly.

“Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough so they don’t want to.” – Sir Richard Branson. In this article, we will focus on the second part of the quote, namely how to keep employee retention high and ensure that all staff see themselves as an integral part of the company.

“Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough so they don’t want to.” – Sir Richard Branson. In this article, we are going to delve deeper into training and focus on the first part of this quote from Sir Richard Branson.

It is no secret that the harvest season brings challenges like working long hours and making a lot of decisions under pressure, causing fatigue and making it difficult to endure for the whole season. This article offers advice from the industry on how to cope with the workload and keep tempers…

Ergonomics is the study and the scientific process of designing physical work environments, objects and procedures to best fit the user. The concept of working smarter, not harder, is central to this approach.

As budding gets underway in the vineyards, it is perhaps also time to breathe new life into our cellars.

In previous articles, I referred to checklists that have to be completed for certain records. It might sound strange, but does your cellar have a list of all the lists to be completed?

If your business runs smoothly, there is nothing to worry about. When things start to go wrong, however, and someone in the team suddenly falls ill or goes on leave, we quickly ask the question: Who is the substitute for this person?

Unhurried reflection on how the harvest went and analysis of the data collected, can help a winery to formulate a winning plan before the next harvest to ensure that its cellar processes run better.

One of the most important cellar activities regularly neglected due to time pressure is the cleaning and servicing of harvest equipment post-season. This article provides a few tips for cleaning the most important harvest equipment.

The management of barrel storage rooms is intended to create a stable and controlled environment for wine to age. This article provides a few of the most important guidelines to be followed.