Lustau

Lustau was founded in 1896 by José Ruiz-Berdejo y Veyán, a secretary to the Court of Justice who cultivated vines and aged wines in his spare time on the family estate of Nuestra Señora de la Esperanza, operating as an almacenista and selling wines to larger Sherry exporters. In 1931, his daughter María Ruiz-Berdejo Alberti acquired a small winery closer to the centre of Jerez and transferred the family soleras there. During the 1940s, her husband Emilio Lustau Ortega moved the business to the historic Santiago district, and in 1945 Lustau ceased operating solely as an almacenista and began bottling and marketing wines under its own brands.

In 1990, Lustau merged with the family-owned Luis Caballero group, which provided the resources required to expand its stocks, international distribution and portfolio. In 2000, the company acquired six nineteenth-century cellar buildings on Calle Arcos in Jerez, which now form its principal headquarters. Lustau describes itself as the only Sherry producer with active winemaking or ageing operations in all three cities of the Sherry Triangle: Jerez de la Frontera, El Puerto de Santa María and Sanlúcar de Barrameda.

One of its most important contributions to modern Sherry was the creation of the Almacenista collection in 1981, which gave independent almacenistas unprecedented public recognition by identifying them by name and recording the number of casks contained in their soleras. Among its best-known examples is Manuel Cuevas Jurado’s Manzanilla Pasada 1/80, sourced from an eighty-cask solera in Sanlúcar and bottled with limited filtration.

The Solera Familiar range represents the principal traditional styles of Sherry. East India Solera is a Cream produced from Oloroso and Pedro Ximénez, whose components are aged separately for approximately twelve years, blended and subsequently returned to a dedicated forty-five-cask solera for a further three years. Pedro Ximénez San Emilio undergoes approximately twelve years of oxidative ageing in Jerez.

Sergio Martínez has led the technical team as cellar master since 2016. In 2025, he was named IWC Fortified Winemaker of the Year for the seventh time, equalling the record achieved by his predecessor and mentor Manuel Lozano.