---

Bully for Them

discovers how an advertising campaign for Spanish brandy came to represent something else: an entire country.

The road to the workshop isn't paved. The old Volvo clunks along the rocks and shards of stone lining the alleyway. When the car stops, two tiny dogs chase each other in a race to reach it. Their yapping obscures the sound of a bright blue corrugated metal door sliding sideways to open. A courtyard is revealed, but there aren't any beds of flowers or paths of manicured grass, only a gravel lot and a low-lying cinder-block building. From every vantage point, you can see the familiar silhouette. Black. Robust. Unmistakable.

Here, in a battered workshop rife with tools and tradition, the heart of the Osborne Group, and some say of Spain itself, resides. Here, in El Puerto de Santa María, in the sherry triangle of Spain. Here, on the outskirts of town, miles from where the corporate offices are. It's the Tejada family workshop, an unassuming place, where a most imposing figure is forged - the Osborne bull, the symbol that rose from ad to icon.

What is now the Osborne Group was founded in 1772 as a producer of fine sherry and brandy. Since then, the company has added numerous varieties and vintages of wine to their offerings, as well as other business interests, including bottled water, Iberian pork products, and the Mesón 5J restaurant chain. The business continues to be family owned and operated. And despite its other endeavors, wines and spirits - including sherry, brandy, and port - continue to be the central focus of the company.