Our History

Ernesto del Palacio project winery starts with enthusiasmas a farming family to produce quality wines with grapes from their own vineyards that are carefully cared, tenacity and experience that has been transmitted from father to son for more than 300 years.

Ernesto del Palacio (Tito) grew up among millennial vineyards and wineries from San Román de Hornijawhere his ancestors made red and Verdejo wines from their own vineyards. In times past, there were no industrial wineries and grape growers made their own wine in ancient wineries, selling it to mule drivers who would be travelling up to the North of Spain-Asturias, Galicia, etc-  and around Castile y León. Once there, they would distribute the wine to the most im.

In the case of the DEL PALACIO family, this wine culture, according to family data, began in 1715 when the Del Palacio family began to sell and produce a unique wine from centuries-old vineyards, those from Toro, which were one of the few that did not suffered the Phylloxera plague that devastated Spain at the end of the 19th century. The last year that it is made in the thousand-year-old winery is 1961 when grandfather - Ernesto del Palacio Gómez - died and his son Ernesto del Palacio Velázquez decided not to continue with the traditional production and sold the grape harvest to the new industrial wineries that had appeared in San Román de Hornija.

Tito since he was a child, had the dream of making a modern winery with all the technology and ethnology available today without missingits agricultural roots that are where a great wine is born. It was in 2019 when our first vintage “Ernesto del Palacio”came out, linked to the Toro Denomination of Origin.

Bodegas Ernesto del Palacio is a dream and a purpose. It has been300 years of history and the desire to return to the winery, to create an experience, to improve who we are.

Since then, Del Palacio family has worked with enthusiasm and perseverance to improve something unbeatable:  tradition, care and dedication of a whole family making unforgettable wines, which mix the past and the present to create broths of future.

History of the Millennial Winery

The thousand-year-old underground winery of ERNESTO DEL PALACIO is located in the wine-growing town of San Román de Hornija, a municipality located west of the province of Valladolid, bordering with Toro, province of Zamora. San Román is formed by two valleys between rivers Bajoz and Hornija, both tributaries of the Duero River.

San Román de Hornija is avineyard land, the cultivation of the vine has been increased and its wines are giving a lot to talk about in this town, included in the Toro Denomination of Origin.

San Román obtained more relevance during the 7th century when the Visigoth king Chindasuinthcommanded the Benedictine order to build a Mozarabic-style monastery in honour of San Román, for him to rest in these lands. Saint Roman was a clergyman and Christian martyr who had his tongue amputated and later on was sent to prison, where he was tortured. The miracle was that he continued to speak without a tongue, thereby sanctifying him.

It will be in this municipality where the king enjoys his retirement together with his wife, Reciberga, who dies years before the king despite her youth. On the wall of the current church of San Romána black marble is shown on the wall with an epitaph dedicated to his beloved.

It is very well known that monastic orders have always been closely linked to agricultural work, especially vine cultivation, therefore the connection between the monastery and wine. They began to plant vineyards and needed labour to settle in the surroundings of the monastery. This is how the town of San Román de Hornija came about.

The wineries or excavated caves neighbourhood in San Roman is located nearby the hillsides close to the urban centre, where the friars found the excellence of the place to produce and store their wine.

This winery neighbourhood is one of the largest on the PeninsulaIbéricawith about 270 natural wineries that today, the vast majority, are used for gatherings with family and friends. But there are others, such as the thousand-year-old ERNESTO DEL PALACIO winery, which is used to preserve quality wines in French and American oak barrels and achieve authentic quality wines with unbeatable temperature and natural humidity characteristics. The winery is one of the oldest and largest in the area that is an unique underground museum that offers a trip back in time to any visitor who enters its galleries.