Viñas Viejas de la Propiedad

Alvaro Palacios has spent decades pioneering a new order of fine wine across Spain. He has created some of the country’s most iconic wines by championing terroir and native grapes whose potential had been long overlooked and untapped. Palacios Remondo is his family’s Rioja estate, tucked in the far eastern corner of the Oriental district. The story in this rugged, high-altitude scrubland is about Garnacha—the territory’s traditional variety and also one of Alvaro’s biggest passions. By focusing on elevating Garnacha-driven wines that are expressive of and authentic to this stunning side of Rioja, Alvaro is continuing to reshape the future of Spanish fine wine.

Rioja Oriental is blessed with a warm, dry Mediterranean-influenced climate (unlike Rioja’s west, where the climate is more continental). The soils, formed by carbonate sedimentation with diverse colluviums containing deposits of volcanic ophite, quartz, and sandstone, covered with carbonate clay, sand, and silt. At varying depths, there is a poor, cold horizon containing petrocalcic calcium (calcium carbonate) with a distinctive white color—this is prized by many for its ability to impart a mineral-driven finesse to the wine. The grapes for Propiedad represent the pinnacle expressions of Palacios Remondo’s terroir and come from three estate vineyards: Las Mulgas, Valviejo and Corral Serrano Viejo. The soils between 0.5 and 2 meters thick are from the Quaternary Period, formed by carbonate sedimentation with colluviums of very diverse origin, containing volcanic ophite, quartz, sandstone, etc. covered with carbonate clay, sand, and silt. The exposure is east/northeast on the Yerga Mountain slopes with vineyard heights reaching between 400-640 meters (1,321-2,099 feet) above sea level with a vine age of 30-94 years old. The grapes were harvested between Sept. 28th and Oct. 6th.

The grapes were destemmed, crushed, and fermented with native yeasts in wooden vats with gentle cap immersion. Maceration took place over 35 days followed by spontaneous malolactic fermentation in barrel. Aging was 10 months in fudres and bocoyes (wooden cask) followed by fining but no filtration.

Elegant and concentrated with dried herbs, strawberry, blueberry, and baking spices ripple over subtle earthy notes and fine-grained tannins. The palate is seamless and beautifully balanced, with a mineral note and seductive mouthfeel.