Julio Palmaz

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Julio invented the Palmaz Coronary Stent, a device that revolutionized medicine. (Artifacts related to his research now sit in the Smithsonian Institution’s medical collection.) Having moved to the United States from Argentina in the late 1970s to pursue medical research at a notable institution, Julio completed his residency at the University of California, Davis, where his passion for wine first emerged. To unwind on weekends, Julio and his wife, Amalia, would drive through Napa in a white Triumph Spitfire, visiting wineries and restaurants. “I had wanted to make my own wines since my days at U.C. Davis,” he would later say. “And where better to make the best wine in the world than Napa Valley?” Winemaking informed by cutting-edge research, Julio believes, can give any winery an advantage in producing excellent wines. Taking inspiration from famous French wineries and the latest in wine science, Julio played an integral role in designing Palmaz Vineyards’ elaborate gravity-flow winery. In the years since the winery’s completion, he has focused on ways to further refine its operations to ensure that the wine can reach its fullest expression. In addition to making wine, Julio maintains and restores an impressive collection of vintage Porsche prototypes. He divides his time between homes in Lake Tahoe, Nevada; Punta Del Este, Uruguay; and Napa, California.