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.
Lustau’s Pedro Ximénez grapes are laid out in the sun after picking until they are practically raisins. After that the fermentation starts slowly and it is halted to maintain all the natural sugars.
The resulting wine ages in for 12 years in contact with the air in Jerez de la Frontera. Darker than the night and richer than Croesus. The aromas are reminiscent of figs, raisins, dates and molasses with touches of hazelnut. Enormously sweet, velvety and soft on the palate, well balanced, with a very long finish. This can be poured, nonchalantly, onto ice cream.
