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Award winners Europe Spain

When it comes to passion, few family businesses express it better than Spanish winemaker Vivanco. Based in the region of La Rioja, the business is now managed by the fourth generation of the Vivanco family. But Vivanco is more than just a great winemaker. The family business believes so strongly in wine culture and wine history that it has built a museum on its estate, dedicated to wine, the best in the world by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). The business also holds many cultural events relating to the great drink. Because for the Vivanco family, every aspect of wine is connected to the success of the business.

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Santiago and Rafael VivancoVivanco Winery, Foundation and Museum

“If you are not thinking long term in the wine industry, you are not going to develop properly.”

Rafael Vivanco, Co-General Manager, Vivanco Family

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From there, Santiago expanded the business by moving from village to village selling his wine. And his wife Felisa, who is still alive today, also played an important part in the success of the business. “She brought to the family the commercial side, which she had learned from selling many different products in markets in Logroño,” explains Rafael. But it was Pedro — Santiago and Felisa’s son — who took the business to a whole new level of success, helping it to achieve international recognition as one of the great wineries of Spain. “My father developed the vision to create a fine wine estate with his family name,” says Rafael.

Pedro was born in 1946, and his love of wine was nurtured by his parents when he was a child. He also became involved in the commercial side of wine early on, by delivering his family’s wine to nearby villages by bicycle. But, according to Rafael, Pedro’s real conversion to everything about wine came with his decision to study enology when he was 20. In fact, he became one of the first certified winemakers in Spain. “After gaining his degree at the Requena School of Enology in Valencia, he decided to come back and develop the family business, despite being offered jobs by other wine groups,” says Rafael.

Around about the same time, Pedro also developed a passion for collecting traditional winemaking tools. “He started collecting when everyone else was rejecting everything that was old,” says Rafael. Pedro also bought land in Briones to increase the size of the estate, which allowed him to eventually launch the winery and the museum in 2004, which together form the basis of the business today. Another big decision taken at that time was to name the wine made on the estate after the family. And so the Vivanco wine brand was born.

Santiago, the eldest of Pedro’s sons, also came into the business. He decided to study law and, afterward, gained an MBA. He now looks after the foundation, the museum and Vivanco’s cultural program. This often involves working with institutes such as the Prado Museum in Madrid, as well as organizing a constant stream of new experiences and exhibitions at the Vivanco museum.

“Everything we do is connected to wine,” says Rafael. Before joining the family business in 2001, Rafael first studied agricultural engineering and then gained an MBA. He also studied enology in Bordeaux and obtained the very prestigious

business is, however, far more than just a great winery. It also encompasses a wine museum; a foundation, which promotes wine through book publishing and cultural events; and one of La Rioja’s best restaurants. Indeed, Pedro Vivanco, the third-generation member of the winemaking family, has described the entire business as the family’s attempt to give back to wine what wine has given to the family.

Fourth generation runs the family business

Vivanco is now run by Santiago and Rafael, representatives of the fourth generation of the Vivanco family. The story of the family business goes back to 1915, when the first Pedro Vivanco — Santiago and Rafael’s great-grandfather — started making wine at his vineyards in the village of Alberite in La Rioja. At first, he only made wine for his family. But eventually, he bought a small bodega, where he bottled and sold wine produced in the village. Pedro’s son Santiago decided to continue the family business and he opened a wine shop in Logroño, the capital of La Rioja.

Winemakers often talk about terroir, the specific combination of climate, soil and other environmental factors that make their wines so special. Vivanco, a family business based in the wine region of La Rioja, is a fine example of a Spanish winemaker committed to expressing its own particular terroir. The land where the grapes are grown and where the wine is made plays an essential role in Vivanco’s culture and its success. And that link to the land has been built up over four generations of the Vivanco family.

Based in in the village of Briones, in northern Spain, Vivanco makes some of the country’s best wines. The family’s vineyards are located throughout the Rioja region, and Vivanco makes its wines from only the best of 300 hectares estate-owned vineyards. The winery includes a state-of-the-art underground cellar, which houses 4,000 barrels. The company’s wine brands include Vivanco white, rosé, crianza, reserva, colección vivanco, the limited production wines, and Club Vivanco wines. And Vivanco’s wines are all presented in a unique bottle, inspired by an early 19th century bottle made in France. The family

Award winners Europe Spain

Vinification cellar in Vivanco Winery.

The Vivanco Museum of Wine Culture illustrates the relationship between man and wine over 8,000 years of history.

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French National Diploma of Enology. Rafael remembers that from a very early age, he always knew he wanted to work in the family business. “I was always thinking about wine,” he says. Rafael now leads winemaking and viticulture at Vivanco. And like his father and his brother, he has developed a passion for collecting old winemaking tools. “I studied for a year in the UK and managed to buy a few very old corkscrews and antiques there to add to our collection,” he says.

In 2004, the brothers and their father decided to start making fine wines. They launched their premium wines in a patented old-style bottles that still distinguish Vivanco’s wines today. At that time, the winery became dedicated to using traditional techniques to produce wines from native grapes. And Rafael has gone on to revive nearly extinct grape varieties and to recreate traditional wine styles from La Rioja’s long history of winemaking.

Long-term perspective as a family business

Rafael believes that being a family business is what makes winemakers such as Vivanco successful and long-lasting.

“If you are not thinking long term in the wine industry, you are not going to develop properly,” he says. “If you plant a vineyard now, it will give you fine wine in 20 to 30 years’ time. So the family business concept of achieving success over a longer period of time works perfectly for the wine industry.” He also says that the family’s commitment to wine is total. “We only work in wine, we have no other business.”

Clearly, the Vivanco family is committed to the wine industry, and expect to be so for many years to come. Indeed, as Rafael says, the two — wine and family — are intrinsically linked. For Vivanco, without family you do not have the wine. That in itself might just represent the purest form of any family business.

Award winners Europe Spain

Vivanco Winery, Foundation and Museum in Briones, La Rioja, Spain.

Vivanco produces some of the finest Rioja vines.

The founder Pedro Vivanco Sr. with his grandson Pedro Jr. on a carriage.

Santiago and Rafael VivancoGeneral Managers

Company name: Vivanco

Generation(s): Third and fourth

Founded: 1915 in Alberite, Spain

Industries: Wine, tourism, media

“The family business concept of achieving success over a longer period of time works perfectly for the wine industry.”Rafael Vivanco