Camins del Priorat, Alvaro Palacios Priorat -Spain

Alvaro Palacios comes from a prestigious wine family, from La Rioja. He could have secured a prime position in the family winery, the world famous Palacios Remondo. However, being the dynamic visionary that he is, he decided to go out in the wine world and make his own way. He studied enology in Bordeaux and had the enviable job of working under Pomerol superstar Châteaus Pétrus winemaker Jean Pierre Moueix. When he returned to Spain, he founded his own winery in 1989 in the Mediterranean wine region of Priorat, south of Barcelona in Tarragona. Together with respected winemaker René Barbier and a few others, they ventured on what is has been called the "Gratallops Project", named after the scenic Priorat village where the wines are made. The group bought the vineyards together and shared vinification facilities until they each set up their own estates.