If anyone embodies the promise and spirit of “The New Spain,” it is Álvaro Palacios. His L’Ermita is widely considered—along with Peter Sisseck’s 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, Álvaro studied enology in Bordeaux, while working under Jean-Pierre Moueix at Ch. Pétrus. He credits his tenure at Pétrus for much of his winemaking philosophy and for showing him “the importance of great wines.” Álvaro could have returned to the security of his family’s domaine. But instead, he was drawn to remote and seductive Priorat, 60 miles from Barcelona, which had been one of Spain’s important pre-Phylloxera wine regions. Beginning in the 12th Century, Carthusian monks had painstakingly terraced and cultivated this rugged landscape, and Álvaro believed that their ancient wisdom could be tapped to yield wines with the stature of Pétrus and Grange. This 2003 library vintage Finca Dofi struts high-toned aromas of black raspberry, black cherry, licorice, bitter chocolate, and crushed white flowers. Expansive on the palate with a continuum of black cherries infused with powder licorice and crushed minerals. The depth and texture are still there with nearly two decades of cellar rest.