Spain’s largest family-owned producer of premium wine and Spanish brandy, based in penedès in north-east Spain. The present company was founded in 1870 by Miguel and Jaime Torres with the fruits of a chance investment by Jaime in a Cuban oil company. A winery was established at Vilafranca del Penedès near Barcelona and its produce was shipped to Cuba in a fleet also belonging to Torres. Miguel’s son Juan expanded the business within Spain and left a thriving family business to his son, another Miguel, in 1932. After confiscation, disruption, and even winery destruction during the Spanish Civil War, Miguel rebuilt the business and as early as the 1940s decided to concentrate on selling wine in bottle rather than in bulk.