It was in 1772 that young merchant Thomas Osborne Mann founded Osborne in El Puerto de Santa María, Cádiz, Spain. In an effort to commercialize the wines of the area he founded his own winery. Today the privately held Spanish company are still renowned for its production of wine and spirits, among other products (fans of acorn-fed 100% Iberian ham will know of Cinco Jotas and Sánchez Romero). It is considered to be one of the world’s oldest firms still active in business and is currently the second oldest in Spain.
The brand is well known for the Osborne Bull, a campaign that began with designer Manolo Prieto in 1956. His innovative advertising medium entailed strategically positioning bulls across Spain's roadside landscapes. Although the Spanish courts ruled in 1988 that all advertising hoardings and roadside advertising were to be prohibited, in 1997 an unprecedented popular movement challenged the Supreme Court. They issued a ruling ‘pardoning’ the Osborne Bull. The court recognized the social, cultural and artistic effect the bull had to the extent that, according to the ruling, it had ‘gone beyond its initial advertising purpose and become part of the landscape’.
The Osborne Group is the owner of a number of brands including Carlos I (bought in 2008), Ampersand and Nordés (bought in 2015), as well as acting as a distributor or marketer for others such as Santa Teresa rum from Venezuela.