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DOMECQ DAYS Of all the brand-names associated with Spanish wines, Domecq is undoubtedly in the top ten. Like many sherry houses, it was founded by non-Spaniards, along with the likes of Williams, Garvey, Croft, Sandeman, Osborne, Humbert, Harvey, Byass, etc, in Domecq’s case of French origin. WORDS ANDREW J LINN
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herry was the first wine to be exported and was drunk in England in Shakespeare’s time. Only the towns of Jerez de la Frontera, El Puerto de Santa María and Sanlúcar de Barrameda can be referred to as producers of Xérès, or sherry: the sherry triangle. The golden age of sherry was the last half of the 20th century, when demand outstripped supply, and most members of sherry families did little work. The Domecqs were possibly the most numerous, with around 180 family members working in the bodega from a total of nearly 400. The surname was enough to open any door, and most of them led a charmed, not to say
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unreal, existence, comprising of a social calendar that included the ferias of Sevilla, Jerez, the El Rocio pilgrimage, shooting parties in the winter, and polo in the summer at Sotogrande. Practically all of them depended financially on the dividends paid each year by the company, and the money they spent on horses (a Jerez priority), fighting bulls, country estates, motor cars and a jet set lifestyle has never been quantified. As one example, I remember a famous party in a Domecq country house for which a Mariachi band was flown over from Mexico. While the good life lasted, it was the best to be had anywhere, and to be a
señorito in Jerez, from a bodega-owning family, was to be blessed. Everyone believed at the time that sherry sales would go on growing forever. The Domecqs constituted a big family with expensive tastes, and the time eventually came when the wine business could not continue to keep them forever in the style to which they were accustomed. Eventually a transformation took place and all over Jerez the bodegaowning families started to be replaced by multinationals. The granddaddy of them all, Domecq, was acquired by Pernod Ricard/Beam Global/ Fortune Brands, which would then proceed to split up the family companies.
