Alvaro Palacios
Distinctive and profound Priorat wines
Pétrus-trained Álvaro Palacios is widely acknowledged as one of Spain’s greatest winemakers. Focusing on local varieties from old, low-yielding vines, Palacios, who is from a Rioja winemaking family, has been instrumental in redefining the Priorat appellation based on the discrete terroirs of its villages and single vineyards.
Palacios’s L'Ermita is a top-of-the-tree Priorat wine predominantly produced from low-yielding old Garnacha vines. L'Ermita carries the category of Gran Vinya Classificada, the top of the official vineyard classification in Priorat.
Finca Dofí is another prestige wine, named after one of the old-vine vineyards that raised Priorat to global fame as a fine wine region. The first vineyard that Palacios acquired, in 1990, Finca Dofí produces wines of extraordinary ripeness and depth.
La Baixada is made from younger vines within the Finca Dofí vineyard growing on steep slopes of licorella slate. Around 2% of white grapes are added to the wine, which is matured in a French oval foudres for 14 months. Palacios’s Les Terrasses cuvée is a blend of old-vine fruit from nine villages within the Priorat appellation. Vi da Vila is Palacios’s Garnacha-based 'village’ wine and is produced from organically farmed old bush vines in Priorat's principal winemaking village of Gratallops.
