Alvaro Palacios Camins del Priorat 2023 (Priorat, Spain) - [JS 92] [WA 91]

About This Winery:If anyone embodies the promise and spirit of “The New Spain,” it's Alvaro Palacios. His L’Ermita is widely considered— along with Peter Sisseck’s Dominio de Pingus — to be the most important new Spanish wine of the modern era.One of nine children born to the owners of Rioja's respected Palacios Remondo, Alvaro studied enology in Bordeaux, while working under Jean-Pierre Moueix at Chateau Pétrus. He credits his tenure at Pétrus for much of his winemaking philosophy and for showing him "the importance of great wines." Álvaro Palacios arrived in Priorat in 1989 as one of the pioneering “Gang of Five.” His dazzling 1993 L’Ermita, from an ancient, north-facing vineyard, would help to put the appellation on the map for collectors the world over. As an elder statesman today, he has been instrumental in pushing stricter regulation for the region, and for instituting a hierarchical structure like Burgundy, with Regional, Village, and Cru classifications. From the beginning,