Williams & Humbert Winery
Introduction
Williams & Humbert is a centenary winery
which represents tradition and innovation in the sherry wine market sector. The current winery was built during the 70's
and is one of the most impressive and biggest wineries of the world which also
has the National Award of Architecture. The winery is located in good place,
next to the city centre of Jerez, and surrounded of gardens, being one of the
most attractive and famous wineries of the region.
History
The wine cellar
was founded in 1877 by Sir Alexander Williams and Arthur Humbert.
From the
inauguration to nowadays, the winery conserve some wines and brandies which are
keeping in oaks barrels of high quality. During the 60's, José Medina created
his own winery and got success soon based in the international market. He and
the Dutch multinational Royal Ahold bought Williams & Humbert, their last
acquisition that is the brand of all their products.
Nowadays, the wineries are located in Jerez de la Frontera,
El Puerto de Santa María and Sanlucar de Barrameda. The headquarters is the biggest winery of
Europe and also has vineyards and a distribution company (Sovisur). The company
sells its products in 80 countries and during the last years has diversified
its market through ham and cheese.
Visit
Visitors
can admire the huge ageing winery with 1 kilometre long where there are around
60,000 American oak barrels that can be observed from the spiral stair. Also
there is a sculpture of the Virgin Mary with a candle which is turned on all
days by the employees to ask for good work day; and a car Ford B of the year
1930.
Furthermore,
the visitors will visit the most important room of the wine cellar, the Gran
Duque de Alba room, where there is a museum of wine. There are all the tools
used during the manufacture of wine, most of them from 18th century.
One of the
most singular facilities of the winery is the horse facilities. The wine cellar
offers horses' spectacles during the visits.
During the
facilities, visitors can see some barrels which have been signed by famous
persons who have visited the wine cellar. As examples, the Beatles, the Kings
of Spain or the Queen of United Kingdom.
Finally,
visitors have a tasting and aperitifs in which can admire the products of the
winery.
The duration of the visit is around one hour
and half.
Schedules: from Mondays to Fridays 10, 12 and
13:30. Afternoons and feast days only with reservation.
Contact:
Telephone: 956 353 400
Mobile phone: 677 452 256
Address: Carretera Nacional IV Km
641 Postal Code 11408 Jerez de la Frontera
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