It is no longer surprising that a wine from Priorat succeeds internationally, given its high quality, but El Cel 2020, from the Merum Priorati winery, once again marked a milestone for national wines, touching the sky, precisely, at the New York Wine Experience, a prestigious wine tasting organized by the North American magazine Wine Spectator, a worldwide reference.
Not everyone can participate in the New York Wine Experience, which was held between October 19 and 21. The first requirement for the wineries was to receive an exclusive invitation. The second, present only a wine that had previously obtained a score above 90 points. Prestige, in addition to recognition, was at stake. Merum Priorati El Cel 2020 with a score of 96 out of 100, shared the ranking of the Spanish wines with the highest score with two renowned wineries: Bodegas Emilio Moro and Vega Sicilia.
At the event, held at the New York Marriott Marquis Hotel, in the heart of the emblematic Times Square in New York and entertained by celebrities such as the singer Sting, Merum Priorati was part of the select group of the 250 best wineries in the world, sharing the spotlight with some houses as prestigious as Château Haut-Brion, Pétrus or Château Lafitte.
Merum Priorati El Cel 2020, made in one of the Pere Ventura Family Wine Estates wineries, managed to impress the demanding jury of the Critics’ Choice Grand Tastings formed, among others, by Jean-Emmanuel Danjoy, director of the properties and technical manager of the three Bordeaux châteaux (Châteaux Mouton Rothschild, Clerc Milon and d’Armailhac), James Molesworth, tasting coordinator for Wine Spectator or by the Spanish chef José Andrés.
This was not the first time that Merum Priorati went to New York to present its wines. In last year’s edition, its Destí 2018 wine was recognized as the 4th best wine in the world in Wine Spectator’s Top 100 Wines of the world. Merum Priorati El Cel 2020 is a wine from old vineyards, with a blend of Grenache, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cariñena and a production limited to only 2,900 bottles, which makes it more exclusive and desirable.
In recent years, Merum Priorati wines have accumulated more than 60 major awards and recognitions at a national and international level. In addition to those mentioned, the 97 “Platinum” points awarded to El Cel 2016 by the British magazine Decanter, another renowned international publication, stand out. Merum Priorati is a winery tremendously rooted in the agricultural and wine history of the Tarragona region and committed to the DOC Priorat, internationally recognized for being the only qualified designation of origin in Spain along with the DOC Rioja.
The terrain of Priorat is famous for its mountains with steep slopes with average slopes of 35% that require artisanal dedication, since mechanization of field work is practically impossible. It is, therefore, a viticulture with a markedly heroic character that, together with the slate soils and its own microclimatology, define the character of its wines. Pere Ventura Family Wine Estates is a family business linked to cava since the late 19th century and under whose umbrella are the wineries Pere Ventura (DO Cava), Can Bas Domini Vinícola (DO Penedès) and Merum Priorati (DOC Priorat).
