Alvaro Palacios

Alvaro was born in 1964 in the family winery in Alfaro. Since then, the aromas of the countryside, the mysterious cellar and traditional wine have accompanied him. It was his father who gave him the opportunity to receive an international education and training. In France, at the University of Bordeaux and working in a vineyard on the right bank of the Garonne, he developed the sensitivity needed to appreciate wine beyond the senses. He learned to read the country's history, land and light into himself, and realized that all the great vineyards of the Old World are rooted in Roman cultural influence, an influence fostered by the various monastic orders of the Middle Ages. With this background and the age-old work of men, great wines were exalted, wines sublime in their natural beauty and great meaning.

It was at this time that he also realized that Spain, too, had gone through historical difficulties that had led to its detachment from the most sophisticated European markets. The French, on the other hand, had maintained the tradition of great wine-growing regions, marked, naturally, by climatic properties. It was here that the complexity of Burgundy, Pomerol, Saint-Émilion and Champagne was forged. Each region has a multitude of small vineyards, where it was possible to separate, classify, select and bottle different, exclusive and enduring wines.

But he began to feel more and more homesick. What's more, the conviction that they had the same ingredients here (a long winegrowing culture, monastic influences, centuries-old tradition and amazing nature), even more intense, took shape.

In these coordinates, he established his life's goal: to seek out vineyards in places of monastic origin and old vines. One or more vineyards with something special that can be transformed into a wine with a powerful identity and deep, even magical, mystery and charm. In short, the category of a great classic wine.

Although they have almost ruined this ancestral heritage in Spain, they still possess the ingredients for a unique meaning. They have to abandon intensive, modern, yet sensible viticulture for luscious, arid soils, under a sun that provides the grapes with the energy they need to produce a good medium-bodied wine. But to make great wines, they have to rebuild the vineyard according to traditional and ancient parameters. The same parameters that explain why, for the last three or four decades, Spain has aroused passionate interest in its wines.