The sudden dismissal in 2019 of Guillermo Cruz, at that time sommelier of the well-known Mugaritz, raised the suspicion that something had twisted that close relationship that he and chef Andoni Luis Aduriz maintained. Last year it became known that the Prosecutor’s Office had filed an official accusation against Cruz for the misappropriation of high-end wine bottles from the Gipuzkoan restaurant. Now, all this entanglement has ended with a sentence that sentences the former sommelier to two years in prison and imposes the obligation to compensate the establishment with 22,487 euros.
It is the culmination of a long process that had been generating rumors in the sector for some time and that has had some critical moments. On his day, the sommelier assured that the dismissal was unfair and, later, threatened to denounce the Errenteria restaurant for libel. With that incident, the confidence that Aduriz and Cruz had shown was reduced to shreds.
During the trial for misappropriating bottles of wine from the restaurant, held last January, Mugaritz claimed four and a half years in prison for the former sommelier, as well as a total of 61,370 euros for the different sales he had carried out with two companies and for the bottles he would have kept for himself. The Prosecutor’s Office demanded two years and three months in prison and compensation of 31,854 euros.
The defendant admitted during the trial to having sold bottles “to third parties”, but maintained that they were his and that “everything was known and consented” to the ownership of the restaurant. According to his statement, Cruz had “his own niche” in the local winery and “even bought” some bottles from the establishment itself, as this was “one of the advantages that the employees had.” Through this procedure, he came to acquire “more than 200 bottles” from the restaurant, which he allegedly paid “in cash” to the cashier.
But the judicial resolution that was released late yesterday afternoon, and to which EFE has had access, considers that the sommelier “was not authorized to sell the restaurant’s bottles of wine for his own benefit”, despite the fact that ” carried out sales of different lots”, the amounts of which were entered into a bank account “of its exclusive ownership”. Thus, the court rejects Cruz’s argument that the sale was “fully known and consented to” by the owner.
However, the ruling does not consider it proven that all the bottles included in the lots sold were the property of Mugaritz, but only a group of them over which the restaurant has managed to prove ownership by means of invoices and whose value amounts to 22,487 euros.
“We consider -explains the judicial text- that this constitutes a sufficient proof principle to rationally infer that these are the same bottles that the defendant subsequently sold”, taking into account, in addition, “the wine, the vintage and the — in many cases—relative immediacy” between its purchase by the company and the sale made by the defendant
The sentence sentences Cruz to two years in prison and financial compensation for the restaurant that includes the value of the bottles, plus the corresponding interest and, likewise, imposes the payment of the costs of the procedure, including those of the private prosecution that exercises the company that owns Mugaritz.
In spite of everything, the sentence also recalls that the defendant did have his “own bottle niche” in the restaurant, thus the hypothesis that some of the wines he sold —and for which Mugaritz has not provided an invoice— were nor is it “absurd, illogical or absolutely rejectable.” This conviction is not final, so it is possible to appeal against it before the Superior Court of Justice of the Basque Country (TSJPV).
