A brand built on triple distillation, organic agave and a maestro tequilero.

Casa Noble is a 100% blue agave tequila made in the tequila heartland of Jalisco, Mexico. Its bottles say it is produced and bottled by La Cofradía, a distillery in the municipality of Tequila, and the brand’s website places its story at La Cofradía, in the hills outside the town. English Wikipedia describes the tequila as made from estate-grown agave, cooked in traditional stone ovens, naturally fermented and distilled three times.

The people behind the brand are named in a press release that Constellation Brands issued on 13 August 2014. In it, Otto Hoernig, then chief executive and chairman of Casa Noble Holdings, credited “the original co-founders of Casa Noble,” David Ravandi, Carlos Hernandez and José “Pepe” Hermosillo, with creating the brand, and called the musician Carlos Santana the company’s equity partner. Today the brand presents Hermosillo as its founder and maestro tequilero, and says his tequila follows traditions honoured over seven generations.

The company has long told a deeper origin story. Its early website, which carried a copyright line for Casa Noble, Inc. running from 1999, said the Casa Noble tradition traced back to an eighteenth-century hacienda surrounded by blue agave. The same site described the production in detail: agave harvested by hand after years in the field, hearts steam-cooked for 36 hours in stone ovens, a five-day natural fermentation and a third distillation in small stills, where most tequila is distilled twice. English Wikipedia’s article on tequila names Casa Noble’s Crystal among the few expressions distilled more than the legal minimum of two times.

A Beverage News column by Robert Plotkin, reprinted on the Casa Noble website in 2008, said the reposado was aged a full year in French white oak and housed in a cobalt-blue porcelain decanter handcrafted by Mexican artisans; the importer at the time was Vamonos Rapido.

Organic agave, French oak and a founder’s collection.

Two ideas run through Casa Noble’s marketing: the third distillation and organic farming. In 2016 the brand’s website called Casa Noble “one of the first” tequilas distilled three times and “one of the first certified organic tequilas,” and said the company makes its own compost for its high-altitude agave fields. English Wikipedia describes Casa Noble as certified organic by CCOF, and the brand’s pages carry CCOF and USDA Organic seals.

The core range has stayed small. Constellation’s 2014 release listed Crystal, Reposado and Añejo alongside limited higher-end bottlings, and by 2016 the website also showed a Joven and single-barrel reposado and extra añejo releases. The brand’s home page still carries the words “Aged in French oak.” At the San Francisco World Spirits Competition, the añejo won double gold in 2007 and again in 2009, English Wikipedia says, citing the competition’s published results.

The most unusual bottlings came after the sale to Constellation. On 2 November 2016 Constellation announced Colección del Fundador, a series of limited releases inspired by Hermosillo’s private collection. Its first volume, Alta Belleza, was a single-barrel extra añejo finished for six months in Taransaud French oak barrels that had previously aged Robert Mondavi Winery’s To Kalon Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley. The release said only 563 bottles were made, and explained the name: To Kalon is Greek for “the highest beauty,” and Alta Belleza is Spanish for “high beauty.”

Santana’s role was spelled out at the time of the sale. Constellation’s release of 2 September 2014 said Casa Noble would continue to be supported by Santana, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame guitarist from Jalisco.

Design and documentation.

The seven brands in this group are all tequila and liqueur names: Casa Noble, Clase Azul, 1800, Hornitos, Cazadores, Corralejo and RumChata. Tequila and liqueur brands in general sit at many different points in the trade, from family houses that still carry a founder’s name to labels that now belong to much larger drinks groups, and a single brand can be sold everywhere from a corner shop to a cocktail bar.

A tequila or liqueur brand’s identity is usually carried less by a single bottle than by a label, a name and the place it promises, because the company behind the name may have changed hands, moved its production or grown far beyond the place where it started. That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its spirit is actually made and bottled.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its spirit is made and how its labels have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

From Casa Noble Holdings to Constellation Brands.

Constellation Brands announced on 13 August 2014 that it would buy the Casa Noble trademark and related assets, and on 2 September 2014 said the deal was complete; terms were not disclosed. Rob Sands, then Constellation’s chief executive, called Casa Noble the first super-premium spirits brand the company would add to its portfolio, and said it complemented Constellation’s Mexican beer brands, which in the United States included Modelo and Pacífico. Hermosillo joined Constellation to oversee the brand’s operations and remain its senior ambassador, the August release said.

The new owner moved quickly to reposition the tequila. In a release dated 22 February 2016, Constellation announced “The Noble Pursuit,” a campaign to relaunch Casa Noble that it described as the biggest marketing investment in the brand’s history; the line “Be Noble” still appears on the brand’s website. Constellation, founded in 1945, was based in Victor, New York, at the time of the purchase; English Wikipedia says it moved its headquarters on 24 June 2024 to the Aqueduct Building in downtown Rochester, New York, the city now named in Casa Noble’s copyright line. The tequila itself is still produced and bottled at La Cofradía in Tequila, according to the brand’s labels and website.

Through these changes the brand kept its vocabulary steady: French oak, organic agave, a maestro tequilero and the word “noble.” English Wikipedia lists Casa Noble among Constellation’s spirits brands, beside High West whiskey and Nelson’s Green Brier Tennessee whiskey.

For a design guide, Casa Noble shows how a small founder-led tequila can keep its maker’s voice after a sale to a large drinks group, leaning on process words rather than on age or place alone. Compare Clase Azul, another tequila known for its decanter, and Patrón, the Jalisco Highlands tequila launched in 1989. For this guide we use cobalt, French oak and agave cream with a refined serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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