Recently Club Oenologique published these Life Lessons with Victor Urrutia of CVNE winery.
As CEO for one of Spain’s most historic Rioja wineries, Victor Urrutia has pioneered a global expansion. But here the Cune chief tells Adam Lechmere of his impatient streak, conservative tastes and why he’d make an excellent waiter.
There’s something Victor Urrutia is not processing, as the shrinks say. By any reckoning, the chief executive and owner of one of Spain’s greatest wineries is a modest man: self-effacing, small in stature, quiet of voice, dapper of dress. But he’s got a thing about a Porsche Boxster that he bought 20 years ago and exchanged for a VW Passat when the weight of responsibility landed on his young shoulders, and he won’t let it go.
Urrutia is one of a not uncommon breed, the accidental winery owner. In 2003 he was perfectly happy in London, pursuing a career in management consultancy, when his uncle, then chairman of CVNE, retired, and his father called to ask the 29-year-old Victor if he could take over the company. ‘I wasn’t so sure that I wanted to live in Bilbao and spend all my time in Rioja,’ he told me. But he did his duty and has now run CVNE, with his sister Maria Urrutia Ybarra as head of marketing, for nearly two decades.
What was your childhood ambition?
What do you know now that you wished you’d known when you were 21?
What exercise do you do?
What is the most expensive thing you’ve ever bought (aside from property)?
These are some of the Life Lessons with Victor Urrutia of CVNE winery, read more here.
Learn more about CVNE here.