Álvaro Palacios was born in 1964 in La Rioja, the seventh of nine children in a winemaking family (Palacios Remondo, founded by his father José in 1948). Rather than joining the family business, after studying enology in Bordeaux and working under Jean-Pierre Moueix at Château Pétrus, he arrived in Gratallops in 1989 at just 25, drawn by the potential of Priorat's old Garnacha vines in what was then a nearly forgotten wine region. He was part of the group of producers known as the "Priorat 5" (alongside René Barbier, José Luis Pérez, Carles Pastrana and Daphne Glorian), credited with reviving the appellation in the 1990s.
In 1990 he acquired his first vineyard, Finca Dofí, and in 1993 he bought the plot that would become his most celebrated wine: L'Ermita, a century-old Garnacha vineyard (planted between 1900 and 1940) on a steep schist slope, named after a small hermitage at the top of the hill. Since 1995 this wine has earned sustained critical acclaim and become one of Spain's most sought-after bottlings.
The estate's philosophy centers on Garnacha as the defining variety — complemented by Samsó (Carignan) and small proportions of white varieties such as Garnacha Blanca, Macabeo and Pedro Ximénez — aiming to express the region's slate (llicorella) terroir rather than impose imported techniques. Besides L'Ermita, the estate produces Finca Dofí and Les Terrasses (often considered one of the finest introductions to Priorat), as well as a village wine from Gratallops that draws on old vines scattered across the township.
Imatge: Lohen11 - Josep Renalias · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Sources: rarewineco.com · escapementmagazine.com · doqpriorat.org