Wine Industry Award: Pay Rates, Classifications, and Obligations

From 1 July 2025, the Fair Work Commission (FWC) increased modern award wages in Australia by 3.5%. As a result, employers covered by the Wine Industry Award 2020 should review all remuneration and entitlements to ensure their employees receive the correct pay.

In this guide, we explain who the Wine Industry Award covers, how to classify employees correctly, and what pay, leave, and penalty rules apply.

The Wine Industry Award: A Quick Summary for Busy Managers 

This section covers the essentials:

The Wine Industry Award [MA000090] sets minimum employment standards and pay rates for employees in the wine industry, which means those working for businesses involved in the growing or processing of wine grapes.

To ensure compliance, managers must consider:

• Award coverage: Whether the employee is covered by the Wine Industry Award and not, for example, the Hospitality Award, the Restaurant Industry Award, or the Retail Industry Award, depending on their primary duties.
• Employee type: Whether the employee is full-time, part-time, or casual, scheduled as a day worker or shiftworker, or classified as a pieceworker.
• Employee classification: Under the Award, classification ranges from Grade 1 (entry-level employees) to Grade 5 (supervisory and more advanced roles) based on their training, assessment, skills, and competence.
• Hours and timing of work: Whether the employee works on weekends or public holidays, or works overtime.

What to watch out for:

• Incorrect application of overtime and penalty rates during vintage, harvest, and bottling. Extended hours and weekend work can increase the likelihood of underpayment.
• Classifying employees by job title rather than actual duties, and assuming salaries cover overtime, penalties, or allowances, especially during vintage periods.

Coming up: Award dates and deadlines you need to know

Award Basics

The Wine Industry Award (or Wine Award) is a modern national workplace award. Its purpose is to ensure employees in the wine industry receive fair treatment and correct entitlements under Fair Work rules.

It specifies the minimum employment conditions for employers and employees in the Australian wine industry, covering pay, penalty, and overtime rates, working hours, leave entitlements, and more. 

The Award works in conjunction with the National Employment Standards (NES), which provide 11 basic entitlements, such as leave and notice periods.

Who’s covered under the Wine Industry Award?

Businesses covered by the Award include those involved in the growing and processing of wine grapes, from wine production (including cultivating wine grapes) to the processing, transportation, and storage of wine and wine-related products. 

Employees covered by the Wine Industry Award include:

• Vineyard workers
• Cellar hands
• Cellar door sales staff
• Packing and bottling workers
• Boiler attendants
• Forklift drivers in winery operations
• Laboratory technicians

The Award also covers labour-hire businesses and their hired employees.

Who isn’t covered under the Wine Industry Award?

The Wine Industry Award doesn’t apply to:

• Workers in wine retail stores not connected with a winery.
• Staff working in a restaurant or cafe situated at a winery.
• Tour guides and bus or van drivers employed by businesses offering wine tours.

The Wine Industry Award also doesn’t apply to:

• Employees covered by another modern award.
• Employees excluded from Award coverage by the Fair Work Act 2009.
• Employees (or their employers) covered by a workplace agreement or enterprise award.
• Employees (or their employers) covered by a state public sector award or a transitional state public sector award.

Coverage self-check: Does the Wine Industry Award apply?

Check the following statements to see if you and your employee are covered by the Award:

• I operate a wine industry business (e.g., a vineyard, winery, cellar door, or an integrated grape-growing and winemaking business) and employ staff to carry out wine-related work.
• The employee performs wine industry duties, such as:
  • Vineyard work (grape growing, pruning, or harvesting) 
  • Winery or cellar operations (crushing, fermenting, blending, or storage) 
  • Bottling or packaging 
  • Laboratory or quality control work 
  • Cellar door sales directly connected to winery operations
• The employee’s role falls within the Award’s classifications, based on what they actually do on a day-to-day basis, not just their job title.
• The employee isn’t a managerial or professional employee who genuinely fits within a different higher-level classification under another modern award.
• The employee isn’t covered by a different modern award that more specifically applies to their primary duties (e.g., the Retail Industry Award, if its classifications better fit).
• The employee isn’t covered by an enterprise agreement (EA). If there is one in place, it will generally set pay and conditions.

If these statements apply, the employee is likely covered by the Wine Industry Award.

Determining Wine Award [MA000090] Requirements 

Many of the rules in the Wine Industry Award depend on an employee’s type of employment and their classification. 

Employment types

The Award groups employees into 4 categories:

• Full-time
• Part-time
• Casual
• Pieceworker

Full-time employees

Full-time employees (day workers or shiftworkers) are employed to work an average of 38 ordinary hours per week (or 152 hours over 28 days). Any hours worked beyond this count as overtime.

Ordinary hours must generally be worked continuously (except for meal breaks) and can’t exceed 10 hours on any day, unless by majority agreement.

For day workers, ordinary hours are between 6:00 am and 6:00 pm, Monday to Friday, except when they’re rostered to work at the cellar door or in the vineyard during vintage periods.

Part-time employees

Part-time employees (including part-time shiftworkers) work reasonably predictable hours but fewer than the average of 38 ordinary hours per week and receive the same entitlements as full-time employees on a pro rata basis.

Casual employees

Casual employees (including casual shiftworkers) work intermittently and are paid a higher hourly rate than full-time or part-time employees, with a 25% casual loading as compensation for not receiving certain entitlements that permanent employees get. 

Casual employees must be paid for at least 4 hours each time they’re rostered or called in to work, even if they finish earlier. The only exception is when bad weather interrupts pruning or harvesting, in which case they’ll receive a minimum of 2 hours’ pay.

Pieceworkers

Under the Award, any full-time, part-time, or casual employee can agree with their employer to be paid a piecework rate. This means they become a pieceworker, and the piecework rate replaces the normal minimum pay for their type of employment.

The agreed piecework rate must be high enough for the employee to earn at least 20% more than the minimum hourly rate under the Award for their ordinary hours, based on their employment type and classification.

For pieceworkers, the following rules in the Award don’t apply:

• Ordinary hours and rostering
• Meal allowance for working overtime
• Overtime pay
• Penalty rates

Wine Industry Award classifications

Under the Wine Industry Award, employees are placed in Grades 1–5, which work like skill and responsibility levels. An employee’s grade is based on their skills, qualifications, experience, and the type of tasks they perform. The cellar door sales stream is the only exception, as it only goes up to Grade 4.

Streams are categories of work within the wine industry. The Award covers the following: 

• Bottling stream
• Cellar stream
• Cellar door sales stream
• Laboratory stream
• Vineyard stream
• Warehouse and supply stream
• Coopers stream

An employee’s stream and grade together determine their minimum pay rate and conditions under the Award.

Let’s look at Grades 1–3 as examples:

For details on Grades 4–5 and further role specifics, refer to the Award.

Wine Award Pay Rates and Entitlements Overview

The Award outlines minimum pay rates, penalty rates, and overtime rates, as well as breaks, allowances, and leave.

Minimum base rates 

Let’s look at the minimum rates for adult wine industry employees, Grades 1–3:

For Grades 4–5 and for details on pay rates for unapprenticed junior employees, school-based apprentices and adult apprentices, refer to the Award.

Penalty rates

Penalty rates must be paid to full-time, part-time, and casual employees when they work certain times or days.

Remember: These penalty rates don’t apply to employees classified as pieceworkers under the Award.

Overtime rules and rates

For full-time employees, any time worked outside ordinary hours is considered overtime. 

For part-time and casual employees, overtime rates apply when they work outside their ordinary hours, work more than 38 hours in a week, or exceed the hours agreed between the employer and the majority of employees.

Overtime rates are as follows:

• Monday to Saturday:
  • For the first 2 hours worked outside ordinary hours: 150%
  • After the first 2 hours worked: 200%

• Sunday:
  • For full-time or part-time employees: 200%
  • For casual employees: 225%

• Public holiday:
  • For full-time or part-time employees: 250%
  • For casual employees: 275%

Employers and employees may also agree in writing to take time off instead of receiving payment for a specific overtime period they worked.

As with penalty rates, these overtime rates don’t apply to pieceworkers.

Breaks

The Award sets out the following break types:

For further details on breaks, refer to the Award.

Allowances

Under the Award, allowances fall into wage-related allowances (extra pay for particular responsibilities or working conditions) and expense-related allowances (reimbursements for certain work-related costs).

The allowances contained in the Award include the following:

For full details of each allowance, check the Award.

Leave entitlements

Most leave comes from the NES; the Wine Industry Award then adds additional rules, particularly in relation to annual leave (which we cover below).

Annual leave

Here’s what you need to know about annual leave under the Award:

• Full-time employees: Get 4 weeks of paid annual leave. 
• Part-time employees: Get a pro rata amount based on their hours. 
• 7-day shiftworkers: Get 5 weeks of paid annual leave.

When employees take annual leave, they’re paid extra on top of their base pay:

• Day workers: The higher of 17.5% annual leave loading or the relevant weekend penalty rates (not both).
• Shiftworkers: The higher of 17.5% annual leave loading or the shift penalty (including weekend penalties), not both.
• Pieceworkers: 20% annual leave loading on their minimum pay rate.

Other rules include:

• Annual leave can be converted to hours instead of weeks if the employer and most employees agree (e.g., a full-time employee’s 4 weeks becomes 152 hours).
  
• An employer may require employees to take annual leave in certain circumstances, such as business shutdowns, provided this complies with the NES.
  
• Employees can take leave as it accrues, but taking leave in advance, splitting leave, or cashing out up to 2 weeks a year needs employer agreement, and minimum balances must stay in place.

Other NES leave

Other types of leave covered by both the NES and the Award include personal/carer’s leave, parental leave, and family and domestic violence leave.

How To Determine Wine Industry Award Coverage

Incorrect coverage or classification can mean compliance issues and financial surprises down the line, so double-check your employees are actually covered by the Award. To see how the rules apply in real life, consider the following example:

Wine Award [MA000090]: A practical, real-world example

Sarah is a 29-year-old full-time cellar hand in a winery who:

• Has worked in the cellar stream of the wine industry for 4 years.
• Works 7:00 am to 3:00 pm, Monday to Friday, with a 30-minute unpaid meal break on each workday.
• Works until 5:00 pm each weekday during vintage periods (which can range from 8 to 10 weeks for her winery, from late January to early April).
• Operates pumps, presses, and fermentation tanks in the winery, monitoring fermentation and recording readings.
• Cleans boilers, flues, and other winery equipment when needed.
• Helps with the training of two Grade 1 cellar hands in the winery.
• Works independently for much of her shift with limited supervision, using her own judgement and technical understanding of fermentation processes.

How the Award applies:

• Coverage: Sarah is covered under the Wine Industry Award as a cellar hand in a winery.
• Classification and base rate: Sarah’s duties as a winery employee align with Grade 3 under the cellar stream of the Wine Industry Award, with a minimum rate of $1,012.60 per week or $26.65 per hour. She’s also classified as a day worker rather than a shiftworker, as she works regular daytime hours within the Award’s ordinary hours.
• Allowances: Whenever Sarah is engaged in cleaning boilers and flues in the winery, she’s entitled to 150% of the Grade 3 minimum hourly rate of $26.65 for this work, which is $39.98 per hour. 
• Overtime: Sarah works until 5:00 pm each weekday during vintage periods. This is 2 hours past her normal finish time of 3:00 pm, meaning these additional 2 hours would incur 150% overtime, totalling $79.95 per day.
• Breaks: Because Sarah is a full-time day worker who works more than 5 hours per shift, she’s entitled to an unpaid meal break and a 10-minute rest break on each workday.

Common scenarios and compliance tips

Apply these key checks to common situations in your business.

1. A vineyard uses a mix of casual grape pickers (harvest workers) and permanent part-time vineyard hands during vintage periods

Key checks:

• Confirm that the grape pickers are genuinely engaged on an intermittent or irregular basis, and the part-time employees have predictable hours agreed in writing.
• Ensure the casual grape pickers receive the correct casual loading.
• Check the minimum engagement and payment requirements for casual grape pickers, especially during short picking, packing, or weather-affected shifts.
• Apply separate overtime, penalty, minimum engagement, and rostering rules for the casual and part-time employees.

2. A winery uses the same employees as cellar hands during the week and for cellar door sales duties on weekends and during peak tourism periods

Key checks:

• Identify whether employees are performing mixed functions and whether different classifications or pay rates apply depending on the work they’re performing.
• Ensure weekend and public holiday penalties are correctly applied when employees move into cellar door work.
• Record not just the hours worked, but the type of work that was performed during those hours.
• If flat hourly rates are used, they must leave the employee better off overall compared to applying the correct rate to each duty.

3. A winery temporarily assigns some employees who normally work vineyard or cellar roles to do bottling and packaging work to meet an export shipment deadline

Key checks:

• Confirm that employees are classified at the appropriate bottling/packaging level, particularly where machinery operation or quality control duties apply.
• Check that meal break and rest break timing are observed properly, that ordinary hours aren’t exceeded on a daily and weekly basis, and that overtime rates are applied correctly for extended shifts.
• Determine whether the roster meets the Award’s definition of shiftwork, which may trigger different penalty rates or conditions for afternoon or night work.
• If bottling work attracts a higher classification than the employee’s usual role, pay the higher rate for the hours worked on the bottling line.

Common employer mistakes to avoid

Common compliance errors that wine industry employers need to avoid include:

• Misclassifying employees based on job title rather than actual duties. For example, calling an employee a “manager,” “senior winemaker,” or “supervisor” won’t remove Award coverage if their day-to-day work remains operational or production-focused.
• Failing to pay overtime during the vintage and bottling periods. For example, employers often mistakenly assume that long or irregular seasonal hours for vintage work are built into the Award.
• Using flat salaries without proper set-off or better off overall testing (BOOT) is a common cause of systemic underpayment. It can result in annual salaries that don’t adequately compensate employees for overtime, penalties, allowances, or periods when higher-grade duties are performed.
• Not paying higher rates for mixed or higher-grade duties. This is widespread in wineries, where employees frequently rotate between vineyard, winery, bottling, or cellar door sales roles. They need to be paid the applicable classification rates for all of the hours they work.

Glossary

BOOT (better off overall test)

The FWC uses the BOOT to make sure employees covered by a proposed enterprise agreement (EA) are better off overall than under the relevant modern award (such as the Wine Industry Award).

Minimum engagement

The minimum number of hours an employee must be paid for each time they’re rostered or called in to work, even if they work fewer hours. 

Ordinary hours

The standard Award hours an employee works before overtime or penalty rates apply, usually averaging 38 hours per week.

Piecework

A pay arrangement where an employee is paid based on how much work they complete (e.g., per item or task), instead of being paid by the hour or week.

Shiftworker

An employee who is rostered to work shifts that fall outside standard daytime hours, such as afternoon, night, or rotating shifts, and who is entitled to specific shift penalties and break rules under the Award.

7-day shiftworker

An employee who works a rostered shift pattern that includes regular work on Sundays and public holidays.

Resources and Links

• Wine Award [MA000090]: A Fair Work Ombudsman document summarising who is and isn’t covered under the Australian Wine Industry Award.
• Wine Industry Award 2020: The full Fair Work Ombudsman document detailing all pay rates, conditions, and classifications under the Wine Industry Award.
• Downloadable Pay Guide: Downloadable Wine Industry Award pay guide from the Fair Work Ombudsman.
• Wine Industry Award 2010: The original Wine Industry Award from the FWC in 2010, which was updated and renamed as the Wine Industry Award 2020. 

FAQs

What is a wine industry award?

The Wine Industry Award 2020 [MA000090] is a modern Australian workplace award that sets out the minimum employment conditions for employers and their employees in the Australian wine industry. It includes details on pay rates, working hours, leave entitlements, and other conditions.

What is the minimum pay in the wine award?

Minimum pay in the Wine Industry Award starts at $935.50 per week (or $24.62 per hour) for a Grade 1 adult employee in their first 6 months. Rates increase with experience, higher grades, casual loading, or if the employee is a pieceworker, as set out in the Award.

Who is covered by the wine industry award?

The Wine Industry Award covers business owners involved in the wine industry, meaning the growing and processing of wine grapes, as well as their employees who fit within the Award’s classifications. It also covers labour hire businesses and the employees they hire out to the wine industry.

Disclaimer

The information provided here is a summary only and does not constitute legal advice. While we have made every effort to ensure the information provided is up to date and reliable, we cannot guarantee its completeness, accuracy, or applicability to your specific situation. Laws change frequently, and outcomes may vary depending on your business circumstances. We recommend consulting a qualified employment lawyer before making decisions related to workforce management. Please note that we cannot be held liable for any actions taken or not taken based on the information presented on this website.