2023 Alvaro Palacios Finca Dofi
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How does this wine taste?
How full and heavy the wine feels in your mouth, like the difference between skimmed milk and cream. More alcohol, sugar and oak ageing make a wine fuller.
The drying, grippy feel on your gums and tongue, as with strong tea. It comes from the skins and seeds of black grapes and from oak, and softens with age.
How much sugar you taste, from dry to sweet. Fruity is not the same as sweet: a dry wine can taste of ripe fruit.
How fresh and juicy the wine is: acidity makes your mouth water. High acidity tastes lively and refreshing, low acidity soft and round.
What we taste What you taste Click a taste for what it means
The bars follow how sommeliers taste (WSET): body, tannin, sweetness and acidity, each from low to high.
Body: powerful. Like most red wines from Priorat; 14% alcohol.
Tannin: firm. Aged in oak.
Sweetness: dry. Red wine from is almost always dry.
Acidity: medium. The warm climate of .
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Log inabout the Álvaro Palacios winery
Álvaro Palacios is considered a pioneer of modern Priorat. Since returning to Catalonia in 1989, he has revitalized the region with wines that combine terroir, purity, and expression. From his cellar in Gratallops, he works with small plots, each with its own distinct character. Finca Dofí, along with wines like L'Ermita, Les Aubaguetes, and La Baixada, is among his most iconic creations. Palacios cultivates organically, respecting nature and old vines, and creates wines that effortlessly combine power and finesse.
vineyard and terroir
Finca Dofí is a 12.5-hectare vineyard located around the village of Gratallops, spread over three "parajes" (lieu-dits). The slopes are steep, and the soil consists of the characteristic "llicorella"—reddish-brown slate with quartz and mica—which imparts minerality and tension. The vines, approximately 20 years old, are planted close together on east-facing terraces and slopes. The climate is Mediterranean with cool nights, which contributes to slow ripening and aromatic refinement. Due to the extreme drought in 2023, with less than 250 mm of rain in a year, the berries were small and concentrated. Álvaro Palacios decided, for the first time in his career, to lightly irrigate the vineyard to protect the young vines and maintain balance.
grape varieties and harvest
The blend consists of 95% Garnacha and 5% Cariñena. The grapes were harvested by hand in September 2023 from low-yielding terraces. Due to the limited rainfall, the grapes were exceptionally concentrated, with small grapes and high aromatic potential. The harvest was peaceful and precise, with strict selection for ripeness and purity.
vinification and maturation
Fermentation took place in wooden barrels with indigenous yeasts. Some of the grapes were vinified as whole bunches, which adds structure and freshness. Maceration lasted 36 days with gentle pigeage. After spontaneous malolactic fermentation, the wine matured for 15 months in oval French oak foudres and large barrels. Approximately 28,000 bottles were produced. The wine is neither fined nor filtered, thus retaining its natural texture and energy.
review by The Wine Advocate
The Wine Advocate awarded the 2023 Finca Dofí 96 points. Luis Gutiérrez calls it "floral, aromatic, and elegant, very clean and precise." He emphasizes the wine's increased refinement in recent years and describes it as "perfumed and harmonious, with a balanced palate and fine freshness." According to Gutiérrez, this vintage is among the most graceful versions of Finca Dofí ever made. Despite its dryness, the wine displays an unprecedented balance between power and elegance. The structure is energetic but not heavy, with a restrained complexity that will further develop in the coming years. Recommended for drinking from 2026 to 2040.
color, smell and taste
Finca Dofí 2023 has a ruby red color with purple reflections. The aroma is expressive and refined: violets, ripe raspberry, cherry, graphite, and subtle spice. On the palate, a combination of ripe fruit and fresh tension. The tannins are silky and polished, the acidity lively, and the structure perfectly balanced. The finish is long, mineral, and clean, with notes of spice, lavender, and stony slate.
style and storage potential
The 2023 Finca Dofí combines power and transparency. It possesses the floral character that has become increasingly prominent in recent years, but with greater depth and harmony than ever. This vintage promises to develop slowly, reaching its peak between 2030 and 2040. Under ideal conditions, the wine can easily age for twenty years or more.
Would you like to order Álvaro Palacios wines online?
If available, you'll find the official fact sheet and additional information about this fine wine in the "Attachments" tab. We'll automatically send you these when you order this wine. The wine is stored in our climate-controlled Wine Warehouse, and if you pick it up, you'll often receive a nice discount. You'll see your discount immediately when you select "Pick up" at checkout. We're located in Dordrecht, just off the A16 motorway with ample parking. Click here for our address: https://www.grandcruwijnen.nl/bezoek-ons . You can read the full wine reviews from Parker, Suckling, Vinous, and Wine Spectator, among others.
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recommended wine and food pairings
- Roast beef with rosemary and black olives. The spicy notes complement the wine's Mediterranean character.
- Leg of lamb with roasted vegetables. The elegant tannins enhance the juicy meat and bring balance to the dish.
- Mushroom and Parmesan risotto. The earthy flavors complement the wine's mineral profile.
- Pappardelle with truffle and parsley. The wine adds tension and finesse to the dish's rich texture.
- Aged Manchego with figs and walnut bread. The wine retains freshness and length alongside the full character of the cheese.
- Roasted eggplant with a spicy tomato sauce. The vibrant acidity keeps the dish light and balanced.
Character
The wine
Origin
Bottle
Wine features
Parker
The Wine Advocate
RP 96+
Reviewed by:
Luis Gutiérrez
Release Price:
$134
Drink Date:
2024 - 2033
I tasted the bottled 2021 Finca Dofí, which comes from the 16 hectares that spread across the lieux-dits of La Baixada, Coll de Falset and Camp d'en Piqué. It was made with 88% Garnacha, 9% Cariñena, 2% Picapoll and 1% white grapes fermented with 40% full clusters in oak vats and indigenous yeasts and matured in oval foudres and large barrels for 14 months. It's bright and subtle, with great freshness and elegance, a new face of Dofí, multilayered and harmonious, fine-boned and with very elegant tannins. The strength here is the palate, which is seamless and with more depth. 28,400 bottles produced. It was bottled in March 2023.
Álvaro Palacios has been the quality leader of Priorat for a long time. Not only does he produce some of the top wines from the appellation, he is also one of the largest producers there! He now has 29 hectares of vineyards in the village of Gratallops and a further 2.5 in Bellmunt del Priorat, and he produces some 372,000 bottles per vintage.
Cataluña and Priorat have suffered from drought lately. The Priorat zone has always been quite dry, but it's even drier now, some years are dramatic. They got a lot of rain (over 800 liters and lot of mildew, a rarity there!) in 2020, 2021 was more or less normal, 2022 was very dry and 2023 was extremely dry. I tasted the bottled 2021s that come from what many call the last "normal" year, and the wines are as good as expected. I already reported on the young unbottled 2021s in June 2022, but I didn't have the opportunity to taste the bottled wines until now. We also tasted the still unbottled 2022s and the very young 2023.
Palacios calls 2022 "the year of the three heat waves" in Priorat. During the winter, they only got 16 liters of rain at l'Ermita and no more than 10 at Finca Dofí and La Baixada. March and April were more or less normal (56 liters and 67 liters, respectively) and with normal temperatures. But from May, there was a big change. During the flowering that year, temperatures reached an abnormally high 35 degrees Celsius, which caused perfect fruit setting, but the plants started protecting themselves from the heat and lack of water. The summer was hell: three heat waves of over 40 degrees Celsius were alleviated by 42 liters of rain in July. They believe the head-pruned vines were the key to cushion the heat, and they delivered 20% more grapes than an average year. The vines got blocked and the ripeness was contained, while they kept the acidity. They started harvesting one week earlier than normal, and the grapes were pale and had less sugar. The wines are surprisingly fresh for such a year. The grapes from L'Ermita had less color, the crop was abundant and the wine is quite pale; in general, all of the 2022s are quite pale .
2022 still benefitted from the rain and snow from 2021, but 2023 suffered more, as it was equally dry and warm and 2022 had been dry, so the plants had no reserves. People were hoping for the rain that didn't come. 2023 was the driest year in recent times, with only 250 liters in Gratallops between November 2022 and October 2023, which is how they measure rain for a given vintage. So, for the first time EVER they decided to water their vineyards, focusing on the rockier ones and the hilltops, which showed more need, as the vines were in danger of dying. But water is scarce there, and the whole operation is labor intensive and costly. The grapes remained small and concentrated, but the wines show unusual freshness and elegance. They are still very young, but they might be better than the ones from 2022. L'Ermita was harvested between October 5th and 11th.
As for 2021, I have already reported on the character of the year, which Álvaro Palacios defined as "a year of concentration and class." It started with a big snow storm (Filomena) in January 2021, 50 centimeters of snow, to be added to the rain of the year. Despite ups and downs, the weather remained cooler than normal. The summer was really mild and the ripeness slow. There was some rain in late August that complicated things with some botrytis, but the concern was the lack of alcoholic degree in the grapes. The grapes simply wouldn't ripen, and there is a requirement from the Priorat appellation to have a minimum alcohol of 13.5% in the reds. The 2021 l'Ermita has the lowest alcohol ever. The wines are elegant and fresh. The wines were bottled almost one year ago and are truly mind-blowing, perhaps the most elegant vintage to date. The year finished with 449 liters of rain, and the grapes from L’Ermita were harvested the 13th of October. 2021 is a very homogeneous vintage, and the wines showed very well, with purity and elegance. It's a very solid lineup; I tasted the wines three times, with a final blind tasting to confirm the sensations.
Published: May 16, 2024
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James Suckling
Alvaro Palacios Priorat Dofí 2021
Wednesday, November 15, 2023
CountrySpain
RegionCataluña
Vintage2021
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Score
96
Scented, delineated nose but has depth, too. It effuses wet-stone minerality that gives a thin overlay to the red and blue berries. Some spices, briar and hibiscus, too. Juicy and medium- to full-bodied on the palate, which is a little more vertical and powerful than many of Palacios’ reds, highlighted by real tension and tautness here. Goes on and on. Drink or hold.
Zekun Shuai
Senior Editor
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Vinous
96
Drinking Window
2025 - 2037
From: Mediterranean Spain: Where to Start? (Mar 2021)
Full ruby-red. Mineral-accented red and dark berry preserve, incense and exotic spice aromas are complemented by suggestions of licorice and candied violet. Seamless and penetrating on the palate, showing superb clarity to sweet, mineral-inflected black raspberry, cherry cola, spicecake and violet pastille flavors. The mineral quality echoes emphatically on the youthfully tannic, impressively long finish, which shows outstanding energy and floral lift.
- By Josh Raynolds on February 2021
One of Priorat’s pioneering producers, Rioja native Alvaro Palacios, whose family owns Palacios Remondo, arrived in Gratallops in 1989. Palacios is the winemaker most responsible for bringing the world’s attention to the region’s outstanding wines. The family estate is in Rioja Oriental (formerly known as Rioja Baja, a name I much prefer) so Palacios was no stranger to Garnacha. Today, Alvaro Palacios makes five Garnacha-centric wines in the tradition of the zone, with a total production of about 35,000 cases per year. Roughly 3,000 of those (the rare L’Ermita, Finca Dofi and the Gratallops Vi de la Vila) are sourced from his own vineyards, while the Terrasses and Petalos bottlings are made mostly from purchased fruit grown in over 100 small parcels spread across Priorat. All of these wines, raised in his expansive, meticulously maintained and modern cellar, are of extremely high-quality. While the estate wines may not be easy to find, there’s usually plenty of Terrasses and the entry-level Petalos to go around. Both of those wines consistently deliver outstanding value.
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In the late eighties, Alvaro met René Barbier, one of the rediscoverers and 'godfathers' of the Priorat. This tipped him to take a look at the forgotten wine region. Alvaro found vineyards here with very old vines. He knew immediately that he had discovered the area to be able to make absolute top wines. In 1989 he bought his first Priorat vineyard 'Finca Dofi' and in 1993 L'Ermita, a vineyard that is now considered one of the very best of the entire Priorat and is named after the chapel at the top of the vineyard.
With wines such as Finca Dofi and the now legendary L'Ermita he gained world fame and put the Priorat on the map as a wine region. All vineyards are processed on the basis of biological and / or dynamic principles to obtain the highest possible quality grapes and wine with the most natural character. Alvaro Palacios is barely 40 when he seems to have accomplished everything. Coming from a family of winegrowers - owners of the Bodegas Palacios Ramondo - as a young man in his twenties he learned the trade with Christian Moueix in the castles of Petrus and Trotanoy. Then he followed the catalan René Barbier in Priorato. Deeply impressed by ancient land and their qualitative potential, he decides to mine his own vineyard in this God-forsaken hole, 135 km south-west of Barcelona. According to Palacios' own words, the general belief is that "the yield is too low, the land is unworkable and requires a lot of manual labor" and that the chance of profitability is small. The sequel shows that the skeptics were wrong. The first millésime, namely the Ermita 1993, was immediately mentioned in the "superstars" club of Spanish wines. This cuvée, consisting of 80 to 90% Grenache Vieilles Vignes balanced by Cabernet Sauvignon and Carignan Vieiles Vignes, has provoked exceptional reactions in Spain but also in the rest of the world. The ultra-modern company of Alvaro Palacios, dominating the village of Gratallops from the top of the hill, testifies to its decisive influence and ongoing efforts to revolutionize the Spanish wine industry. Alvaro Palacios, the architect of the success of the Ermita, summarizes with conviction: "The philosophy behind the vinification involves expressing the character of the terroir with the greatest transparency and purity."
The authoritative British wine magazine Decanter has named Alvaro Palacios Winemaker of the Year 2015. He is honored for his efforts to put Spain on the map in general and the regions of Bierzo and Priorat in particular worldwide. Palacios has illustrious predecessors. Last year, the brothers Perrin won from Chateau de Beaucastel, for which the honor went to Angelo Gaja, Robert Mondavi and the late Serge Hochar.
At Grandcruwijnen.nl you will find an extensive selection of the wines of Alvaro Palacios such as his absolute cult wine the L'Ermita and the Dofi, but we can certainly also recommend the wines that are a lot friendlier in price such as the Álvaro Palacios Camins del Priorat. Click here for an overview of the wines of Alvaro Palacios
De 2023 Finca Dofí toont een robijnkleur en opent met viooltjes, rijpe rode bessen, grafiet en mediterrane kruiden, terwijl het in de mond een frisse zuurgraad, zijdezachte tannines en een lange mineraalgedreven afdronk combineert. Daardoor sluit hij prachtig aan bij rundvlees en lamsgerechten omdat de tannines en het frisse fruit het vet en de umami in het vlees opfrissen, bij rijkere pastagerechten en paddenstoelenrisotto omdat de mineraliteit en het aardse karakter die smaken ondersteunen, en bij gerijpte kazen omdat de lengte en het bloemige accent de zoute en notige tonen completeren. Kies bij bereiden voor geroosterd of langzaam gegaard vlees met rozemarijn en een geconcentreerde jus, pappardelle met truffel of een romige paddenstoelenragout, of gegrilde groenten en aubergine met een kruidige tomatensaus om de balans tussen kracht en finesse van de wijn maximaal tot zijn recht te laten komen.
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