Jerez de la Frontera

Jerez de la Frontera grew into a major inland city under the Almohads and was taken by Castile on 9 October 1264; its name recalls its place on the frontier with Granada. In 1465 Henry IV named the city very noble and very loyal. The Jewish community of the town remained until the expulsion of 1492. The Carthusian monastery, founded in 1478, bred the Carthusian horse, and Zurbarán painted its altar pictures.

The wine industry grew rapidly in the fifteenth century. In 1587 a raid by Drake's fleet on Cádiz and Jerez carried off about 3,000 butts of the wine, and the booty made sherry fashionable at the English court. From 1682 English merchants settled in Jerez to buy wine peacefully and founded bodegas such as Garvey; Spanish and French capital followed, including the Domecq family. Baroque palaces such as the Bertemati palace of 1758 and the Palacio Domecq of 1778 were built in the eighteenth century.