Snooping through a historical archive leads to the conclusion that any time in the past was not better and that before there were those who faced – and survived – political ups and downs, wars or epidemics.
Back in December 1871, the diplomat Juan Nicolás Osborne wrote a letter from Paris in which he complained about the “inept” president of the French Republic, Adolphe Thiers [just a month later, he resigned];
he criticized the "extremely dangerous ambition" of Spanish President Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla [who had already resigned from office, although he later returned], and was "infinitely" happy that smallpox was remitting in the Cadiz town of El Puerto de Santa María.
The Earl of Osborne's personal letter is just a snippet of something not so common:
Osborne wineries celebrate 250 years of life as one of the oldest companies in Spain.
Purchase contracts, inventories, letters from historical figures, paintings, iconic advertising designs and historical buildings with antiquity and heights typical of a cathedral make up the historical and cultural puzzle of that anniversary;
all stored with care in the headquarters that the company has in El Puerto de Santa María.
There, in what was the first winery industrial complex in Spain, the Osborne Foundation has been immersed since 2016 in the hard work of analysing, cataloging, documenting, digitizing and disseminating all that past.
The oldest document that it conserves dates from 1571, some deeds of sale of some properties in the Cadiz town, initialed long before the company started.
Carla Terry, head of communication at the Osborne Foundation, and Iván Llanza, its director, examine one of the oldest documents stored in the archive."JUAN CARLOS TORO"
The history of this winery in the Marco de Jerez (area where this wine is produced) begins long before the surname Osborne gave it its name.
It was in 1772 when James Duff, the British consul in Cádiz, and the French-born businessman Jean Haurie joined forces to start some “outstanding quality” wine soleras.
English merchant Thomas Osborne Mann did not join the company until 1831, at which point he became the majority shareholder, acquiring 80% of a business then called William Duff Gordon & Co.
“As part of the family was in England and another in Spain, in their letters they contextualized what was happening a lot.
The archive is an inexhaustible source of information”, explains Carla Terry, head of communications for the foundation.
For now, the entity has already cataloged some 400,000 documents, standardized according to the international archival description.
Each advance made by the team is a happy discovery, such as the letters that the romantic writer Washington Irving dedicates to the Osborne to thank them for their attention during his stay in El Puerto in the summer of 1828, when he begins to write
Cuentos de The Alhambra
.
This is also the case of the letter that the writer Cecilia Böhl de Faber —sister-in-law of Thomas Osborne Mann— wrote in 1867, under the pseudonym Fernán Caballero, to tell a friend about the “embarrassment” she felt that a bookseller had charged her for a book of his when it didn't have to be that way.
Or the documentary remains of the priest Francis Morgan Osborne, grandson of Thomas and legal guardian of the writer JRR Tolkien —author of
The Lord of the Rings—
from 1904.
Design for the 'Count of Osborne' brandy bottle made by Salvador Dalí and kept in the Osborne offices in El Puerto (Cádiz). "JUAN CARLOS TORO"
For now, the archival cataloging work goes back to the 19th century and up to 300 documents can be consulted —most of them transcribed— completely freely on the foundation's website.
"We've been at this for years.
It is one of the most powerful private archives in Spain”, points out Iván Llanza, director of the cultural entity, also dedicated to the training of young people at risk of social exclusion.
The idea is that this dissemination work —carried out in collaboration with the University of Cadiz and the Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid— also facilitates the work of researchers, who can consult documents as varied as order forms in which Clients appear like the house of Windsor or shipments of ships to America that, on return, brought cocoa or pepper.
And that without counting that the one in El Puerto is only one of the headquarters of the company's archives.
We must add those of Anís del Mono (in the Barcelona town of Badalona), those of Sánchez Romero Carvajal (originally from Jabugo, Huelva) or those of the Rioja Montecillo wineries, all firms owned by Osborne.
Or the great advertising archive in which old slogans are preserved that range from “Woman, buy brandy for your man” to “Woman, drink brandy”, explains Norma Veiga, a collaborator in the digitization of the archive and the foundation's website.
Much of this advertising baggage is exhibited and interpreted at the Toro Gallery, an exhibition space dedicated to the design of the iconic bull billboards made by the illustrator Manuel Prieto as the image of Veteran Brandy in 1956.
The painter Ramón Casas won the contest organized by Anís del Mono with his work 'Mono y mona'. Osborne
Through the corridors and offices of the Osborne offices, history is intertwined, but also art.
The original design that the artist Salvador Dalí made for the Conde de Osborne brandy bottle shares a room with the manolas that Ramón Casas painted for the Anís del Mono advertising posters, after winning a contest organized in 1897 by the brand's founder, Vicente Bosch.
Now, the company is reaching its 250th anniversary with an agenda of events still in the making —the publication of a book, the celebration of a major event and the appointment of chef Ángel León as ambassador— are already certain and with the unknown number of treasures are yet to come to light.
"This is like an archaeological site, you know it's there, but you still can't discover it," adds Llanza excitedly.
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