This fall’s alumni reception in Spain offered UM grads another chance to reconnect abroad. Among those drawn to the Madrid affair was Guillermo de Aranzabal, M.B.A. ’84, who in 2005 became president and CEO of his family’s wine empire.

With four generations preceding him, his love of the vine seemed inevitable. “As a boy I used to go to the winery with my grandmother,” de Aranzabal says. “I started to like it very much: the smell, the casks, the vineyards. I saw how my father enjoyed running the winery.”

Established in 1890, La Rioja Alta S.A. now boasts 1,700 acres of prime vineyards, four wineries, six distinct brands, a Madrid-based distribution company, and commercial offices in both Germany and Miami. Under de Aranzabal, the 119-year-old corporation happily marries tradition—such as building its own oak casks—with technology. This year they’ll invest $1.7 million to stay on top of both.

“Currently, we are running three R&D projects,” de Aranzabal explains. One involves implanting micro­chips in the vines to better forecast and respond to their needs, another employs electrochemical sensors to monitor the fermentation process, and the last will help automate the racking of wines in the aging cellar.

In de Aranzabal’s field, CEOs must also abide nature. While hail and frost left some of his wineries bare in 2000, 2003, and 2007, de Aranzabal says the 2001, 2004, and 2005 harvests yielded “extraordinary vintages.” La Rioja Alta’s spicy and versatile Viña Ardanza brand, introduced in 1934, is perhaps Spain’s best-known quality wine. Like the company’s other products, it comes from the Basque region’s Rioja area, valued for its climate and Tempranillo grapes.

A wine center for 2,000 years, Rioja is “one of the very few regions able to produce good wines year after year,” notes de Aranzabal, who was raised in the Basque capital of Vitoria-Gasteiz, where he still lives with his wife, Birgitta Bittner, and their 10- and 13-year-old sons. “They speak Basque to their friends and cousins, German to their mother, Spanish to me, and I speak French with my wife,” de Aranzabal explains with pride. “So we are quite an international family, living in a very traditional part of the world.”

He insists that extensive travel and cultural exposure, including his time studying in the United States, proved more vital to his education than any degree. Not that his UM experience didn’t make its mark. One professor left such a positive impression that when de Aranzabal found his address online 22 years after graduation, he shipped him a case of wine in gratitude.

De Aranzabal is also grateful for the example set by his father, who led the business from 1979 to 2005. The recipe for greatness he upholds? “Respect the land and tradition. Adapt to modern times. Follow trends, not fashions—and we reinvest almost all the money we make.” A mission worth toasting, to be sure.