Sandeman is a brand of Port and Sherry wines founded in 1790. Its well known logo features a caped man named Don dressed in a Portuguese student's cape and a wide Spanish hat. Besides Port and Sherry wines, it also produces Brandy and Madeira wine. The history of this brand started in 1790, when the 25-year-old son of a Scottish prosperous cabinetmaker asked for a 300£ loan from his father to set up as a wine merchant in London. This ambitious young man was George Sandeman, the founder of Sandeman, who ended up establishing one of the world’s leading Port and Sherry wine businesses. It was Sandeman who, in 1877, began to mark his wine barrels with the GSC brand, which confirmed the origin of the beverage and served as a guarantee of its high quality. More than seventy years of wine from the trademark Sandeman adorns the creation of the artist George Masstot-Brown: a black silhouette of Don, dressed in a student coat and a wide-brimmed hat, with a glass of wine in his hand. This symbol makes famous wines recognizable even today. Since 2002, the famous wine house has been part of the Portuguese group Sogrape Vinho. From early on Sandeman specialized in these two great Iberian fortified wines and, following a usual practice in those days, began trading not from own offices but from Tom’s Coffee house, on Birchin Lane, London. Business was agreed on a "gentleman’s word" and George soon gained an impeccable reputation, characteristic of The House of Sandeman to today.