The Finnish lawyer Mikko Alkio, who works for a large law firm, arrived in Barcelona in 2010 so that his children could practice his great passion, tennis. And it was in the Ciutat Comtal that he discovered in February 2013, at the wine bar La Vinya del Senyor, right next to his admired church of Santa Maria del Mar, the wines of Ribera del Duero and Priorat. Only a few months later he couldn’t resist the temptation to visit the vineyards and villages of the Priorat, where he was magnetized by its telluric magnetism. He took advantage of the confinement due to the pandemic in Finland to study Spanish with a private teacher: he spent an hour and twenty minutes a day, including Sundays. The progress was very fast. On July 25, 2020, he was able to negotiate the grounds of the first property he acquired, in Lloar.
Alkio explains that “these vines are exceptional, they were planted in the winter of 1939, almost at the same time when the last battles of the Spanish Civil War were being fought a few kilometers away”. It was the germ of his exciting Clos Alkio project. In 2020 he acquired a building in ruins on Carrer Saperes de Gratallops where there was an old cellar from the 13th century. In its ancient presses, thousands of kilos of grapes had already been crushed eight centuries ago. With the production of the year 2020, it started at the Priorat de Gratallops Wine Cooperative. It continued in 2021 at the Clos de l’Obac winery, also in Gratallops. In 2022 he already did it in his own cellar, with 20,000 kilos of grapes. In the first three years, it adds up to around 50,000 bottles, which it has started to market this year. It exports between 60 and 70% of production, with ten references. Soon it will have 14 wines. Finland, India and Belgium are the main international markets.
He expects to close the first financial year with a turnover of 200,000 euros. The investment in the last three years has exceeded two million euros. And he continues to buy old houses in Gratallops to rehabilitate them and turn them into apartments to house customers and distributors while he is finalizing the launch of a restaurant next to the winery.
He assures that he has done in three years what he had planned to achieve in five. And he expects to place the turnover in the next two years between 500,000 and 600,000 euros, and achieve a production of between 100,000 and 150,000 bottles in just five years. He claims that his business plan is long-term, and points out that “I am neither an investor nor do I take it as a hobby”. It has 25 hectares of its own, of which ten are planted. His winery has just been incorporated into the association Associació Vinícola Catalana. He says that they want to respect the tradition of the region, but warns that “I have not come to the Priory to copy”.
