The company Emilio Lustau was established in 1896 and was initially a small family concern until the founder’s son-in-law placed it on a business footing. The firm is perhaps best known as pioneering the Almacenista system, whereby individual dry sherries are produced from small private holdings. These are bottled under Lustas’s name but with the individual bodega’s name on the label as well. Today they are amongst the most sought-out Sherries in the region.
Lustau is the only winery that produces wines in each of the three cities in the Sherry triangle: Jerez de la Frontera, El Puerto de Santa María and Sanlúcar de Barrameda. In the year 2000, Lustau acquired six 19th century bodega buildings in the centre of Jerez. These picturesque buildings were restored to their original glory and today house the principal ageing bodegas of Lustau, which heads the Luis Caballero Group’s Sherry Division.
East India Solery Sherry is a blend. Each wine (Oloroso and Pedro Ximénez) is matured, separately in its own solera for 12 years. Once blended together, the resulting sherry is returned to a 45-cask solera for a further 3 years ageing. In centuries gone by, casks with sherry were lashed to ships sailing for the Indies and were found to develop an extraordinary smoothness and complexity. Lustau has revived this style of sherry in the East India wine.
Dark mahogany in colour with green-amber edge. It offers vibrant notes of maple syrup, brown sugar, shoe polish, raisin and chocolate beer nuts, all very well integrated. On the palate it is smooth and rich at the beginning, full of prune and burned oranges peel flavours. Provocative spicy notes appear just before its nuttiness and terrific acidity cuts through the sweetness. With a truly unforgettable finish.
