Emilio Lustau, one of Spain's greatest Sherry Bodegas, is named after Don Emilio Lustau Ortega, son-in-law of founder Don José Ruiz-Berdejo y Veyan. Don José, of French descent, founded the family firm in 1896 at his home in Nuestra Señora de la Esperanza, but in the 1940s Don Emilio moved the firm to the Santiago district. The firm saw significant expansion, and became one of the top Sherry producers, trading under Don Emilio's name.

Emilio Lustau is one of Spain's top Sherry Bodegas, notable for its high quality standards. The revolution started in 1981, when the late Rafeal Balao, introduced the Almacenista range of wines. This concept reflected the company's origins, as Don José Ruiz-Berdejo y Veyan had originally been an Almacenista - a storekeeper or stockholder of Sherry. The Almacenistas are small business operations, small family owned bodegas which, in many cases, are run by local professionals almost as a hobby, as well as local businessmen. These families sold the product of their soleras to the Sherry firms, the wines being blended into large volume cuvées. Balao became concerned that the outstanding qualities of these fine wines, which were produced in miniscule quantities to a very high quality, were lost in the blending process. As a consequence he decided that some should be bottled separately.

There are a small number of Almacenistas associated with Emilio Lustau, and they produce a well defined selection of wines for the Almacenista range. These names, such as Pedro Ximenez and Oloroso , represent Lustau's top wines. The labels on Almacenista wines always declare the number of butts in the solera. Hence a label may display the numbers 1/38, indicating that the wine came from a solera of 38 butts.

In 1990 the business was sold to Luis Caballero, another long established family business. This brought the added advantage of scale to Emilio Lustau, helping it compete in the internatonal marketplace.