In 1910 Mr. Francisco Páez , our Managing Director´s grandfather , founded with some friends a Wine Society for the purchase and enjoyment of old sherry wines. While selecting these wines , he discovered a small quantity of a unique high quality sherry vinegar.

This vinegar was kept as a family heirloom , but in 1945 his son Mr . Antonio Páez Lobato had the idea of developing a totally new business from his treasured vinegar : It was to produce the first commercial SHERRY VINEGAR. Sherry vinegar was then regarded as a by-product of the sherry wine industry , although all the big sherry wineries kept a small reserve of this unique product.
Since then, our company has been purchasing and collecting all the aged sherry vinegars which were sold by some firms within the Sherry District like Williams & Humbert , Sandeman , bodegas O’Neale and others . An exceptional purchase was that made from Mr.Alejandro Romero Osborne , whose vinegars dated back to 1936 and where of outstanding quality.That extraordinary finding led us to use it as the first step of our “ soleras “to give a touch of real history to our vinegars. At present , the busisnes is still family run and our inventory of 1.000.000 litres , aged in 2000 American oak casks , is the largest in the area , what allows us to maintain our vinegars with the highest quality standard.

The solera system:
It is a method of maturation wich ensures that each year the sherry vinegar tastes exactly the same as the vinegar of the same type in preceding year. Solera is derived from the Spanish “ suelo “ – floor . In the sherry context it means the foundation or final stage of a blend, which is generally the lowest row of butts closest to the floor . A solera system consists of rows of casks of identical vinegar which are fed into successive criaderas (nurseries) of previus years in graduated stages of maturity. When a vinegar is required , a proportion is drawn from the casks at the final solera stage , which are refilled from the first criadera . The first criadera is refilled from the second and so on in a " waterfall " sequence . In this way a " chain of maturity " is achieved. A good shipper runs the system slowly to ensure that the character and average age of the solera remain constant.