Álvaro Palacios

Álvaro Palacios arrived in Priorat in 1989 as a young winemaker from Rioja, and his timing was either visionary or fortunate or both: the region's ancient Garnacha and Cariñena vines on black llicorella slate soils had survived phylloxera and abandonment, and the wines they produced when farmed and vinified with care were unlike anything else in Spain.

The Gratallops estate is farmed under certified organic standards with biodynamic practices applied across the oldest vine parcels. The llicorella slate — a schist-like rock that fractures along natural planes and drains efficiently while retaining mineral complexity — is one of the few vineyard soils in Spain that rewards the kind of attention biodynamic farming provides, and the results in the glass are measurably different from conventionally farmed Priorat.

L'Ermita — made from a parcel of ungrafted Garnacha vines over 100 years old, planted on the steepest and most dramatic llicorella slope in the estate — has drawn 98+ points from Wine Advocate and is considered one of the ten most coveted bottles in Spain by collector consensus. Finca Dofí, the second wine, carries the same farming ethos at more accessible volumes.

Palacios also produces L'Ermita de los Herederos from Bierzo, where Mencía grown on slate produces a completely different but equally serious expression. The farming philosophy travels across both projects.