Bodegas: Cuvillo y Cia.

Carlos del Cuvillo y Sancho was born in El Puerto de Santa Maria in 1869.  In 1908 he bought a bodega there called MM de Mora which had been established in 1783. It grew to become one of the town’s largest and most respected bodegas and also had premises in Sanlucar. The firm owned the El Limbo y Santa Ana vineyard in the Pago Balbaina.

Old advertisement (Imagen Gentedel Puerto)

Cuvillo supplied a lot of Sherry to Martinez Gassiot, the Port and Sherry shippers, and also to Harveys of Bristol, especially for their Bristol Cream. In 1961 Rumasa got the Harveys contract (not entirely fairly, it is said), but Cuvillo continued to supply wine via Rumasa till 1983 when the Rumasa crash left them with huge stocks they could not hope to sell, and they were bankrupted in 1985. By this time, Harveys had their own bodegas in Jerez. The old Cuvillo bodega in Calle Los Moros now houses the Municipal Archive, while the others now house the old De Bandera soleras of M Gil Luque, part of Grupo Estevez.

Old Cuvillo bodega now Archive (Imagen Diario de Cadiz)

Some of their Brands were:

Amontillado-Fino Basilio, Fino C, Amontillado A.XII, Corona Cream, Dulce 1a, Las Seis (Light, pale Cocktail Sherry), East India Superior (Full, rich), Solera Santa Isabel (choicest rich nutty Sherry), Sangre y Trabajadero Oloroso, Manzanilla La Gineta, Jerez Naviero, Oloroso Fabuloso (reputedly over 100 yers old)

Carlos Gutierrez Colosia bought the Sangre y Trabajadero solera, which he had always admired, from Cuvillo, retaining the (virtually) original label. Trabajadero refers to the cooperage and Sangre to the street name where it was located.