Both brothers spent three years learning to run Santa Teresa by working in every aspect of the business from the bottom up. "When I first met Henrique, when I was just starting as a chef in Caracas, he was delivering the rum, completely the last person on the link of the company," laughs Leal. "I didn't even find out he was the owner­ till his third delivery. He drove this old Volks­wagen because his father said, 'That's what you could afford on this salary.' [The brothers]­ really liked getting to know the people, and still do. When we've done fancy wine dinners together, we would sneak out from the estates and go to underground places, and they could always get people to talk to them freely because they're not cocky. They could be mistaken for anybody by their simplicity."

The brothers' common touch was an important factor in pulling Santa Teresa back together, Leal feels. "If you go to the hacienda, you can see how loyal their workers are," he says. But to aid in the complex machinations required to restructure the company, Alberto also took a postgraduate course in crisis negotiation at Harvard. It soon came in handy in ways he'd never imagined.

"ACTUALLY, I NEVER WANTED to be in business at all," Alberto confesses cheerfully. "I was always sort of the black sheep of the family." While Henrique never considered any career path but the family company (save for a short flirtation with the idea of becoming a pro rugby player), his older brother, who'd spent some of his early years at Valley Forge Military Academy and College - an attempt to instill discipline in the independent-minded young troublemaker - worked from age 18 to 28 as a photojournalist.