Alvaro Palacios • Finca Dofi 2019

Über das Weingut Alvaro Palacios

Neben Telmo Rodriguez und Raul Perez, zählt Alvaro Palacios zu den drei Winzern, die den spanischen Weinbau seit den 80er Jahren in die Neuzeit katapultiert haben. Ende der 80er Jahre beendete Alvaro seine Lehrzeit bei Petrus und Stags-Leap und kehrte nach Spanien zurück, um sich auf einem eigenen Weingut selbst zu verwirklichen. Im damals noch völlig verschlafenen Priorat, in dem nun aber weltbekannten Örtchen Gratallops, erkannte er unglaubliches Potential und lies sich als junger wilder Winzer dort nieder. Bereits nach wenigen Jahren gelangte er mit seinen 3 Hauptweinen L'Ermita, Finca Dofi und Les Terasses zu Weltruhm.

Über den Wein Finca Dofi 2019

Der natürlich unbestritten beste Wein Alvaros ist der legendäre (und leider unbezahlbare L'Ermita). Kaum ein anderer Wein Spaniens hat die begehrten 100 Punkte so oft abgeräumt. Dicht dahinter folgt die Einzellage Finca Dofi, die ein Cuvee als Grenache, Carignan und bis zu 3 weiteren Rebsorten darstellt. Im außergewöhnlich heißten Jahr 2019 gelang Alvaro der bisher beste Finca Dofi aller Zeiten.

Im Wine Advocate Juli 2021 vergab Parkers Verkoster für spanischen Wein, Luis Gutiérrez, die Weltklasse-Note von:

97/100 Punkte

Der Wortlaut der Lobeshymne lautet:

The single-vineyard red 2019 Finca Dofí comes from the 14 hectares of vines planted across three parajes (lieu-dits) in Gratallops. This year, it's 87% Garnacha, 12% Cariñena and 1% white grapes (Garnacha Blanca and Macabeo. It fermented in oak vats with indigenous yeasts and matured in large oak barrels (bocoyes and foudres) for 14 months. It's classy, elegant and fresh with very clean aromas and flavors, not lacking concentration or power. There is superb definition and purity here; it has to be the finest and most elegant Dofí to date. It has finer tannins and more elegance than La Baixada this year. The 2018 was fragrant and this has more clout but superb balance. These two vintages have been great for Dofí. I still remember the 2005, hard as nails then and what the wine is now—spherical and velvety. Dofí on a roll... It was bottled in May 2021, and 21,146 bottles were produced.

Climate is certainly getting extreme, and in Priorat, we saw an incredibly warm (up to 43 degrees Celsius!) and dry 2019 (with only 280 liters of rain) and a 2020 with 800 liters of rain! But so much rain and the warm temperatures can only end up in a huge mildew attack. The rest of the season was extremely warm, to the point that ended it up being their earliest harvest ever! Year of extremes... year in and year out! Both years were higher in Garnacha and lower in Cariñena, in 2019 because of the heat and in 2020 because of mildew. So, the wines are more Garnacha driven than ever.

For Álvaro Palacios, the highlights of the 2019 vintage (I only tasted Camins from 2020) were the Finca Dofí and L'Ermita. The Dofí was classy, elegant and fresh with very clean aromas and flavors, but L'Ermita was truly captivating, quite different from the 2013, an extreme year, perhaps in an opposite way but truly exceptional. It deserved my highest rating, as my heart started beating faster as I put my nose in the glass. Bravo!

Drink: 2022 - 2030