“Yiannis Boutaris is no longer with us. He passed away this evening, at the age of 82, with his family by his side,” a post by Boutaris family, on the page of the Kyr-Yiannis estate on the death of the former mayor of Thessaloniki, the businessman and winemaker.

“Visionary, charismatic, pioneer, unconventional, Yiannis Boutaris is history, but also the source of inspiration for the renaissance of Greek wine. And not only. An inexhaustible force of nature that lived up to its first name. Mr. Giannis will forever be in our hearts,” the same post added.

Who was Yannis Boutaris?

Yiannis Boutaris was born in Thessaloniki (1942). He was a graduate of the Chemistry Department of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki with a degree in Oenology from the Wine Institute (1967). He was Deputy Director, Technical Director and CEO of the family business I. Boutaris & Son Winery S.A. (1969 – 1996). In 1996 he left the family company and in 1998 he founded “Kyr-Yiannis SA”, with the namesake wines and wineries in the privately owned vineyards in Giannakochori Naoussa and Amyntaio, which is currently managed by his two sons.

Giannis Boutaris was a municipal councilor of Thessaloniki for two terms (2002-2006 and 2006-2010). He led the faction “Initiative for Thessaloniki” during the municipal elections of 2006 and 2010 as a candidate for mayor. In November 2010 he was elected mayor of Thessaloniki for the first time (term 2011 – 2014) and in 2014 for the second time (term 2014 – 2019).

He has been President and member of the boards of many professional, cultural and environmental organizations since 1980, such as the Assembly of Viticultural Regions of Europe, the International Academy of Wine, the Hellenic Wine Association, the Thessaloniki Film Festival, WWF Greece, and the Tourism Organization Thessaloniki and President of the Holocaust Museum of Greece. He was a founding member of the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, and of the civic society “Arktouros”, which aims to protect the brown bear and, in general, wildlife and the natural environment. He has received many national and international awards.

He was married to Athena Michael, with whom he had 3 children. At some point they separated, but later decided to live together again, but without remarrying. When Athena Michael died, Yannis Boutaris fulfilled her wish not to be buried religiously but to be cremated, which was done in Bulgaria as there is no crematorium for the dead in Thessaloniki. He has publicly stated that during the 1980s he suffered from alcoholism.

In 2020, Pataki Publications, in collaboration with Maria Mavrikakis, released the autobiography of Sixty Years of Harvest, which tells the story of his turbulent life and especially the involvement of the winemaker Mr. Giannis with the vineyard and wine.