Oloroso Falange Española

Jerez de la Frontera, famous as the home of sherry, fell to the with very Little resistance. The city was under their control on July 19.

Business advertisements and posters were often by-products of political posters. Advertising was full of the flags and national colours, in this case the red and gold, of the new rulers. The official coat of arms with the imperial eagle and the yoke and arrows of the Catholic Monarchs was also widely used.  In the middle of the Civil War, González Byass’s long time head of publicity, Luis Pérez Solero, created a lively campaign in favour of the rebels, giving its Tío Pepe Brand a military flavour with slogans like “the only thing the reds haven’t been able to destroy” and “González Byass doesn’t deceive. Típ Pepe is the wine of the soldiers of Spain”.

In this context, this label for “Falange Española” oloroso stands out. It shows a young member of the Falange holding the flag that José Antonio Primo de Rivera had created for the party, with his feet planted on the slogan “Arise Spain” printed in the colours of the rebel flag. According to Manuel Gil Monreal, a member of the family that owned the winery, the label was used in the years immediately after the Civil War when the business was run by its founder, who had qualified but never worked  as a teacher, and who was in charge of paying the school teachers, some of whom had been fired for having supported the Republic.

In order to help them in difficult economic circumstances, he had given some small Jobs to some them. The authorities did not approve and began to question his loyalty to the regime. He created this label to address these concerns and win back the government’s trust.

It was in this context in which Palomino & Vergara brought out its Requeté cognac, named after the carlist militias, González Byass its Imperial Toledo (“the wine of heroes”), and Manuel García Monge, from Salucar de Barrameda, its Triumphant Spain.

This is a small part of a history, that of the sherry industry with the Francoists, that largely remains unwritten