Alvaro Palacios comes from a prestigious wine family from the La Rioja region. He could have secured a prime position in the family winery, the world-famous Palacios Remondo. However, being the dynamic visionary he is, he decided to go out in the wine world and make his own way. He studied enology in Bordeaux and had the enviable job of working under Pomerol superstar Châteaus Pétrus winemaker Jean Pierre Moueix. When he returned to Spain, he founded his own winery in 1989 in the Mediterranean wine region of Priorat, south of Barcelona in Tarragona. Together with respected winemaker René Barbier and a few others, they ventured on what has been called the “Gratallops Project,” named after the scenic Priorat village where the wines are made. The group bought the vineyards together and shared vinification facilities until they each set up their own estates. His aim, it is widely said, was to make a wine somewhere in between Ch. Pétrus and Grange. That is a tough order to fill, but he has achieved phenomenal praise for his three wines, Finca Dofí, L’Ermita, and Les Terrasses. Alvaro, along with Peter Sisseck at Pingus in Ribera del Duero and Telmo Rodriguez in Toro wines, is considered the “new generation” of Spanish winemakers. His wines have won him cult status and are absolutely salivated about in the wine mags. John Radford, the Spanish wine specialist, says: “To sum up: Les Terrasses is excellent, Finca Dofí is outstanding, and L’Ermita is unbelievable.”
