FROM HEAVEN TO HELL

A TOP sommelier has been given a two-year prison sentence for secretly selling luxury bottles of wine in Spain’s Basque Country.

Guillermo Cruz, who was named the best sommelier in Spain in 2014, sold a number of high-end bottles from a two-star Michelin restaurant where he worked in Gipuzkoa. The 39-year-old wine expert worked at Mugaritz restaurant from 2012 to 2019, where he was the dining room manager.

Great Mosque

Top sommelier gets jail time for flogging high-end wine bottles under the table

By Alberto Lejarraga

Cruz has now been sentenced for selling a number of the restaurant’s most expensive bottles - worth €22,487 - to third parties. The accused admitted to the deeds, but he claimed the bottles belonged to him and the restaurant consented to the sales. Cruz added that he had his own wine collection in the restaurant’s cellar and

THE Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba - a World Heritage Site since 1984 - is on the verge of breaking its record for number of visitors. The monument, the first stone laid in the 8th century AD, is already at 92% percent of visits compared to its best year, 2019, at just past the halfway point of 2023.

In 2019 a total of 2,079,160 people visited the monument and though the high season for tourist trips to Cordoba is late springearly summer (April to June), everything points to this year being the best for visitors in the ancient mosque’s history.

Top level access

ALICANTE-ELCHE airport won the European ‘Accessible Airport Award’ at a recent industry event in Barcelona for going above and beyond.

that he had even bought some of them himself from the establishment. He claimed he had bought over 200 bottles of wine from Mugaritz, which he paid with cash. But the court dismissed this version and ruled that the sommelier ‘was not authorised to sell wine bottles from the restaurant for his own benefit’.

However, it could not be proved that all the bottles he sold belonged to the two-star restaurant. Mugaritz initially asked for a compensation of over €60,000, but it was decided that Cruz would only need to pay €22,487.

However, the sentence is not final and the well-known wine expert can appeal to the High Court of Justice of the Basque Country.

Airports Council International (ACI) gave Alicante the nod for ‘its work and commitment to achieve a more accessible airport for people with disabilities and reduced mobility’.

The ACI highlighted measures such as specific lanes for people with reduced mobility, the implementation of a loading area for electric wheelchairs and the creation of a sensory room for people with hidden disabilities such as autism spectrum disorder, which is currently under construction.

Cruising in

Cruise tourism is on course to set records this year in Andalucia as the sector gets back on track.

Up until May, Andalucian ports have received a total of 387,129 passengers, compared to 191,199 in the same period last year.

This represents an increase of 202%, according to stats published by the State-owned Spanish Port System, Puertos del Estado.