While growing up in Alfaro, Álvaro Palacios witnessed the dumbing down of Rioja after the Civil War ended, where Tempranillo became all that was validated, and Rioja itself became a simple, price-oriented brand. Álvaro allows that the bad decision-making of the 80s and 90s was the result of a lack of confidence, and calls the focus on varietal Tempranillo 'viral - an invasion', particularly so on the soils below the river. 80% of the 23,000ha of Rioja Baja is planted to irrigated industrial Tempranillo: as Álvaro term it, 'artificial wine'. Under José Palacios, Palacios Remondo was a conventional Rioja of industrially-farmed Tempranillo expressed within the Crianza-Reserva-etcetera model of production. In the years under Álvaro's guidance, the vineyards and wines have undergone extraordinary change. Nowadays the vineyards are biodynamically grown low-crop organic plantings of local Garnacha genetics, with a scattering of Viura. Any Tempranillo in Palacios Remondo wines is purchased from good growers near Haro on the Ebro's north shore.