Alvaro Palacios

From Rare Wine Co.:

anyone embodies the promise and spirit of “The New Spain,” it is 43-year-old Alvaro Palacios. His L’Ermita is widely considered—along with Peter Sisseck’s Dominio de Pingus— to be the most important Spanish wine in a generation.

One of nine children born to the owners of Rioja’s respected Palacios Remondo, Alvaro studied enology in Bordeaux, while working under Jean-Pierre Moueix at Ch. Pétrus. He credits his tenure at Pétrus for much of his winemaking philosophy and for showing him “the importance of great wines.”

Alvaro could have returned to the security of his family’s domaine. Instead, he was drawn to remote and wildly beautiful Priorat, 60 miles from Barcelona, which had been one of Spain’s important pre-Phylloxera wine regions. With its unique terroir of steep hills and terraces Alvaro believed that here he could make a wine that was like a cross between Pétrus and Grange.

He acquired his first vineyard, Finca Dofí, in 1990. Then, in 1993, he located what is now regarded as the crown jewel property in Priorat, a precipitous, northeast-facing Garnacha vineyard on well-drained schist that had been planted between 1900 and 1940. Alvaro named it for a small chapel, or hermitage, that sits atop the hill.

In 1995, the flow of critical praise for Alvaro’s L’Ermita began, and it hasn’t stopped. But while L’Ermita has received most of the attention, Alvaro produces two other wines compelling in their own rights: Finca Dofí and Les Terrasses.

Finca Dofí. Finca Dofí is a blend of Garnacha, Cabernet, Merlot, Syrah and Cariñena. Like L’Ermita, Dofí combines power and richness with great breeding and finesse. In most Priorat tastings that do not include L’Ermita, Dofí is the clear winner.

Additional Winemaking Notes:

No filtration, fining with egg whites (all wines)
L’Ermita destemmed by hand, others by machine.
Maceration: 25 days (L’Ermita and Finca Dofi); 15 days (Les Terrasses)
Fermentation in oak vats with punching down (L’Ermita and Dofi); fermentation in stainless steel with pumpover (Les Terrasses)
Malolactic fermentation in barrel for L’Ermita and Finca Dofi.
Biodynamic viticulture for Dofi and L'Ermita.