Christophe Urios, the manager of UBB, is also the owner of Château Pépusque.
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Pépusque Castle
Christophe Urios' Union Bordeaux-Bègles receives La Rochelle this Saturday (5.15 p.m.) for a shock of the Top 14.
The manager of UBB has also been a happy wine owner for a year.
A real homecoming for him.
He runs, with the help of his wife and his brothers, a farm of around fifty hectares in the Minervois, between Aude and Hérault.
"I need to be busy or else I'll get pissed off!"
So that's why Christophe Urios is having fun at the moment crossing France up and down and across on his days off.
In recent weeks, some have been able to see it, for example in Vannes, Paris, Bayonne or even Clermont.
No, don't worry, the manager of Union Bordeaux-Bègles does not swallow the kilometers just to occupy the mind.
Although!
He actually drives, right, left, for his second job.
Yes, he has had one for some time.
It is true that the first is not at all taking, not really.
Even for a person who gets up every morning between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. like him.
More seriously, if today everyone knows the media coach of UBB rugby, very few know the winegrower of Château Pépusque in Aude.
Yet for over a year, Christophe Urios has spent a fair amount of time among the vines.
Sorry, for his vines.
He made one of his dreams come true, to buy a wine property, he the son of a winegrower.
"I knew that I would come back one day because I always had in the back of my mind this desire to come back to wine", explains the holder of a BTS in viticulture-oenology.
And to come back, he came back almost exactly to the same place almost 35 years later.
Only a few meters from his father's farm in his native village of Pépieux in the Minervois.
A homecoming in every sense of the word
As he says with his banter, "it's an incredible story, a crazy thing" when telling that his father was none other than the manager of this cellar and that these same vines, which he comes from. buy, were his child playground.
“When we talk about going back to basics, it's a real homecoming,” he laughs.
This corner of France straddling the departments of Aude and Hérault, he has never really left despite his career as a player and then as a high-level coach.
"We had been looking for really two years" specifies Isabelle his wife and "the confinement ended up accelerating the project", adds Christophe Urios.
And of course, there was no question of finding somewhere other than in the Minervois, no matter if he has been living since the summer of 2019 near Bordeaux in the middle of the vineyards.
Christope Urios is at the head of a vineyard of around fifty hectares in the Aude.
- Château Pépusque
The former hooker is now at the head of a rugby team of about fifty players with the UBB but also of a vineyard of 52 hectares including 42 of vines, 370 km away.
“It's primarily a family project, and I don't just do that for myself either.
I have my two brothers, Guillaune and Sébastien, who work on site and Isabelle [Urios, his wife] works on them from morning to night.
In all, there is a team of seven people ”, details the one who tries to go there for the moment once a month.
"I clearly want Pépusque to become a reference"
If Christophe Urios admits that “it was a bit of hell at the start to plunge back” into a profession that he had in the end “never really practiced”, it is now “a real breath of fresh air” in his daily life.
But beware, it's not a breath of fresh air for a breath of fresh air.
It is bad to know the manager of the Union.
A perfectionist to death - it is “maybe even worse” with wine, says his wife - the neo-winegrower obviously wants to “be the best” in this area (too).
True to its maxim, “being better never stops”.
“I clearly want Pépusque to become a benchmark and he has enormous potential!
», He says.
Really ?
For that,
20 Minutes
asked for its opinion… from a UBB player!
Indeed, Christophe Urios is not the only wine enthusiast in his team.
Rémi Lamerat recently obtained his BTSA (higher agricultural technician certificate) in viticulture / oenology and is continuing his studies in the field.
The three-quarter center had the opportunity to taste
Les cailloux blancs,
a red from Château Pépusque, before a match a few weeks ago:
It was particularly good and I was very surprised at the quality of its cuvées.
These are hot wines with a lot of character and fruit.
This one was very colorful, very dense and with very little tannin unlike Bordeaux.
"
Red, white, rosé… there is a choice at Château Pépusque with a price range ranging from 8.50 to 22 euros today.
And other wines will soon see the light of day like the Marco, in memory of the former president of Oyonnax or of the Pépusque Trésor expected him for 2022. For wine lovers, you can find a few bottles at wine merchants like at Vinimarché in Pessac or at L'Amour du vin in Gradignan in the Bordeaux area or order online.
The paw of the winegrower Urios
If Christophe Urios "affirms that his wine is the best in the world" to Rémi Lamerat and that the former French international answers him "not the best, it is necessarily a Bordeaux", the Bordeaux center wishes to salute the bottles of its coach which "stand out thanks to a real identity and a great marketing".
Indeed, while waiting to put his personal touch completely on his wines so that they “look like” him because it can take time, Christophe Urios put it on his bottles.
The wines of Christophe Urios with his very special bottles.
- Château Pépusque
Bottles that denote in a very conservative environment.
But hey, at the same time, we shouldn't expect anything else from a communication ace.
He therefore created bottles and above all very specific labeling: "I need it to be beautiful and modern," recalls the former coach of Castres and Oyonnax.
Sometimes opaque bottles and labels in the four colors of the estate: blue, orange, purple and red.
It sure catches the eye right away.
Rugby, still a top priority
Still, Christophe Urios is not a magician and like everyone else times are hard.
It's not always easy to sell the 60,000 bottles of your first harvest.
You have to travel through France for that, while being at the head of a team which is aiming for the finals of the Top 14 and will play an 8th final of the Champions Cup in a week against the English Bristol.
But he stays the course:
Today, my career is in control so it leaves me a little bit of leeway.
After that I have to be careful not to scatter myself because I have an ultra-lively job.
For the moment, I manage to lead the two together without problem, if ever one day I feel that I am kidding I would refocus on rugby.
There, I am building the second part of my life but I do not know when it will begin.
"
For the moment, it is not yet time to do "a few bartering of boxes between winegrowers" as Rémi Lamerat imagines with a laugh.
It is time for the field.
Rugby with the UBB three quarters of the time but also the vineyard with the Pépusque castle recently.
Now between two matches or training, Christophe Urios will plant four hectares of vines or prepare receptions and seminars when the work will be completed in Pépieux "by 2023 and the World Cup", he said.
A real ministerial schedule.
But that's what he's looking for because “even if sometimes it's not easy, it fascinates me”.
And this is the main thing with him.
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