Wine + Rock: Wine Defender & Las Furias in PlanetaVino

Article published in the magazine PlanetaVino edition Rock & Wine and written by RaqueLíquida:

Onneca Gueblenzu is a rocking woman who has focus all her passion in wine and music. Descendant of amateur musicians ¨in my family all my uncles play some instrument without having attended to a conservatoire ¨ – and professionals – one was Juan María Guelbenzu,

contemporary composer and friend of Chopin and Liszt and son of a known organist of Pamplona – this Navarran girl has spent all her life in in contact with wine. She is a daughter of Ricardo Guelbenzu, owner of Bodega del Jardín

Together with their family, and, though she studied Law, she´s been across countries selling wine during her time along wineries as Gramona or distributors as Vila Viniteca.

She lives now in Geneva, where continues being brand manager and export adviser of some wineries, while between reheasal and recording sessions, she studies to obtain the Diploma of the prestigious Wine and Spirit Education Trust, a previous step to turn into Master of Wine.

Onneca Guelbenzu confesses that she cannot live without one of these two ingredients in her life: ¨I need them both. Only with the music I would not be happy, I would miss the wine. But I could not live without music either. I need this balance ¨, she comments. She plays since little and in her university years she formed part of the band ¨Las Perras del Infierno¨, with which they managed to get the attention of the expert in music Jesus Ordovás and released with the ¨indie ¨ label Subterfuge their first album ¨Intuición Canina¨, with which they were nominated  in 2006 to the Music Awards organized by the Academy of the Arts and the Sciences of the Music.

After six years the band dissolved and Onneca Guelbenzu continued playing together with her friend Olatz Alberdi, a union that continues now in the band ¨Las Furias¨ and the electronic formation ¨Virüs¨. Her ¨sucia ¨ (affectionate transmutation of ¨socia¨ or ¨partner in their rocker slang), Alberdi, only drinks calimocho, for what Onneca recommends her always ¨fruity wines, that then she mixes with refreshment of cola¨.

She understands, thanks to the constant tours to play, that musicians enjoy wine and gastronomy: ¨in our first tour they gave us wine as a gift, but it is thanks to these trips how you discover food and wine. If you like to discover culture, what people eat and drink, to play in different places brings you an enormous opportunity ¨. She adds: ¨ between Olatz and I, we have contributed to rise wine consumption, in every tour we enjoy it ¨.

But this is not everything what Onneca Guelbenzu does to live in full wine and rock. Since a time she runs  www.winedefender.org, together with her father, a non-profit-making blog, where ¨I´m generating my own style and this activates me ¨ and where both try to approach the wine to people and link it to the culture and way of living. In addition, during her stay in Catalonia she started one series of shows where the people were tasting wines and listening to music, called ¨Club Glop ¨ (the drinking club in Catalan) that now wants to continue in Geneva, where she lives. Because, as herself affirms, ¨there are some things that are in the genes

RaqueLíquida for PlanetaVino (magazine of www.proensa.com, Thanks Raquel!)