Alvaro Palacios

Álvaro Palacios is one of the defining figures of modern Spanish wine, famed for spearheading the renaissance of Priorat. Born into the Palacios Remondo wine family in Rioja in 1964, he studied in Bordeaux and worked at Château Pétrus before striking out on his own. In 1989 he arrived in the rugged hills of Priorat, joining the pioneering group around René Barbier, and sold his motorbike to buy his first vineyard in Gratallops. From those steep slate (“llicorella”) slopes he created Clos Dofí and then L’Ermita, a s…