🍷 Williams & Humbert

Williams & Humbert is a sherry and brandy bodega in Jerez de la Frontera; Wikidata gives Jerez as its location. According to the house, it was founded in 1877 by the Britons Sir Alexander Williams and Arthur Humbert, and helped to create the Jerez-Xérès-Sherry designation of origin. Its present buildings date from the mid-1970s and, the house says, have been declared Andalusian heritage. The Medina family acquired the bodega in the early 1990s.

According to the house, it ages its wines in about 60,000 American oak casks and owns vineyards in the Jerez Superior pagos of Balbaína, Añina and Carrascal. Its brands include Dry Sack, Canasta, Fino Pando and Don Zoilo, and it keeps a collection of vintage sherries dating back to 1920.

According to the house, the firm was founded to sell Jerez wines and brandies on international markets, and the Medina family's involvement in wine and spirits dates to the 1960s, when the brothers Ángel, Nicolás, José and Jesús began; the second generation of the family now manages the company. The house describes its winery as covering more than 50,000 square metres, one of the largest in Europe, and says it exports to more than 70 countries.

The house says it has 23 hectares of organic vineyards in Carrascal and Balbaína planted with Palomino, Pedro Ximénez and Moscatel, and 35 hectares of Pedro Ximénez in Añina and Carrascal, 7 of them organic. It launched what it calls the first organic fino of the Jerez region in 2018 and an organic oloroso in 2022. Its sherries include Canasta, Fino Pando, Manzanilla Alegría, Dry Sack, the Don Zoilo range and the VOS and VORS Don Guido, and it also lists the brandy Gran Duque de Alba.

Sherry (Jerez-Xérès-Sherry) is a protected designation of origin (PDO) in the province of Cádiz. It is made mostly from Palomino and aged in oak casks of up to 1,000 litres, dynamically in criaderas y solera or statically by vintage; the strength is 14–22% vol., and it may be bottled only in its zone of origin.

Why it matters to you. Fino, Oloroso or Cream on the label are types set by the rules, while names such as “Dry Sack” or “Canasta” are the house's brands. The WHO reminds: there is no safe level of alcohol.