During his 52 years dedicated to the wine business, Agustin has run wine companies in Chile, Argentina, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, New Zealand and California. He has created many labels of which the best known today are Quintessa, Estancia, Magnificat, Veramonte, Primus, Casillero del Diablo, among many more. He has been involved with large and small operations: from being head of all wine operations for Seagram, the now defunct world leader of wines and spirits, to creating the Quintessa wine estate, to which he now dedicates his time.

This vast and diverse experience gives him a special perspective. He understands the difference between the entrepreneur and the corporate approach to risk, growth and economics. He has experienced first-hand the demands confronted by the large company and those of the small operation. He has experienced the evolution of public taste and witnessed from very close the effect of those unpredictable changes in the planning and management of wine companies.

This vast and diverse experience has led to several strongly held beliefs about the future of the wine business. Agustin is a devout believer in the importance of linking fine wine to its place; that “brands” play a minor role in the high end of the business; that it is place and type that the consumer truly seeks; that it is the role of the “gatekeeper” (restaurateur, sommelier, wine critic, merchant) to connect the consumer to the appropriate wine from the sea of offerings with which he is confronted; that numerical ratings as they are used today are an aberration.

Agustin was born in Chile and started his wine business activity there as CEO of Concha y Toro. He was impelled out of Chile by political circumstances. Edgar Bronfman, Sr. invited him to run Seagram’s Argentine operations, and after three years, moved him to New York to head Seagram’s worldwide wine operations. Not feeling his destiny to be in the big corporate world, Agustin eventually migrated to California, where he established a Central Valley wine company known as Noble Vineyards, later buying Concannon Vineyards in the Livermore Valley and eventually taking over Franciscan Vineyards, as partner, in 1985. He sold Franciscan in 1999, keeping  Veramonte, a winery he had created in Chile, as well as  Quintessa, a 280-acre biodynamic and organic wine estate in Rutherford, Napa Valley, which he developed with his wife Valeria, in 1990.

Since 2005, Agustin has been “liberated” (rather than retired) from the responsibilities of management of his estates, which have been taken over by his son, Agustin Francisco, who for many years supported him in many positions. Today, the family wine business, Huneeus Vintners, encompasses: Quintessa, Faust and Illumination, in Napa Valley, Flowers, in the extreme Sonoma coast, The Prisoner and Saldo from Napa Valley and California, and Veramonte, Neyen, Ritual and Primus in Chile.

Agustin was awarded the Distinguished Service Award by the Wine Spectator in 1996. He is an accomplished and enthusiastic cellist, skier and aviator.