Álvaro Palacios

Finca Dofí did not start out as a wine of his own. It was called Clos Dofí, and in the 1989, 1990 and 1991 vintages the five growers who brought Priorat back pooled their grapes in a shared cellar in Gratallops and made a single wine that reached the market under five different labels: Clos Mogador for René Barbier, Clos Dofí for Álvaro Palacios, Clos Erasmus for Daphne Glorian, Clos Martinet for Josep Lluís Pérez and Clos de l'Obac for Carles Pastrana. From 1992 each made his own.

Álvaro Palacios comes from the family behind Palacios Remondo, in Rioja, and before settling in Priorat in 1989 he spent two years at Château Pétrus.

In 1993 he bottled L'Ermita for the first time, from very old vines, and that is what led much of the district to look at its own old vineyards differently.

Finca Dofí is sixteen hectares across three sites — Camp d'en Piqué, la Baixada and Coll de Falset — on steep slopes between 250 and 350 metres over slate soils, with garnacha, cariñena and other local varieties.

It is fully destemmed, ferments in wooden vats with punch-downs, the malolactic starts on its own and it ages fourteen months in French oak barrels.