Bodegas Palacios Remondo

Garnacha before the cellar

Garnacha sets the first decision for Álvaro Palacios, winemaker at Bodegas Palacios Remondo in Alfaro, Spain. He returned to the family estate in Rioja Oriental with a formed sense of site, after study at the University of Bordeaux and work at Château Pétrus, and put that training back into the vineyards above the Ebro valley. The estate’s lineage begins with José Palacios Remondo and a family tradition given as 150 years old; Álvaro is named as the fourth generation. Here, the work is not an importation of Priorat practice into Rioja, but a narrowing of attention to the Yerga range, the old family firm, and the varieties that have long belonged to this eastern side of the appellation. Under his direction, volume fell by 60%, a hard cellar number that says more than any claim about refinement. The point was quality through less, with organic farming, estate fruit, and minimal mechanization holding the method close to the ground.

La Montesa and Valmira as working ground

The estate farms approximately 100 hectares, including La Montesa and Valmira, on lower slopes of the Yerga range. Altitude reaches up to 550 meters, and rainfall is given as barely 360 liters per year, so the vineyard work depends on stony, silty soils that keep enough moisture without making the vines easy. Garnacha leads the red program, with Tempranillo, Graciano, Mazuelo and other red varieties in the blend of place; Viura carries the white wine. Plácet de Valtomelloso is made from 100% Viura, fermented and aged in large old foudres, a choice that keeps wood present as vessel rather than perfume. La Montesa Crianza is built around 90% Garnacha and 10% other reds, fermented in large oak vats and aged for 10 months in French barriques, 50% of them new. Propriedad uses 90% Garnacha and 10% other red varieties, with 55% wild yeast and new French oak. These are cellar decisions, but they begin in the vineyard rows.

A no-frills winery above the Ebro

The cellar feels agricultural before it feels polished. The estate sits on hillsides above the Ebro valley, with the Yerga range shaping both light and weather; the room carries that closeness to field work. There is quiet here, not ceremony. Tanks, foudres, barriques and fruit move through a clean, ordered program, while the surrounding air is tied to oakwood, thyme, fennel and rosemary. Alfaro’s Roman name, Graccurris, gives the place a longer shadow, but the present tense is practical: parcels to read, fermentations to guide, barrels to decide. The tasting room follows the same line, more vineyard-focused than theatrical, with La Montesa and Valmira doing the explaining.

What remains in the glass

The estate’s current importance lies in that return to Rioja Oriental without softening its identity. Palacios treats regional character as material, not backdrop, and the family property gives him a bench where inherited practice and technical formation meet. The next measure is still in the bottles that carry the site names, especially Plácet de Valtomelloso, La Montesa and Propriedad.