Winemaker Notes
Aromas of red fruit with mineral, menthol, and licorice notes. On the palate, it is expressive, round, and creamy, with delicate tannins. Its flavor reflects fresh fruit, with a long and elegant finish. Desti is an honest and coherent wine, as the expression of fresh fruit is reborn on the palate. The finish is long and elegant.
Desti 2022 combines perfectly with rather lean dishes: a coca de trempo with prawns; a turbot baked in a wood oven with potato millefeuille monalisa and Iberian ham. It is also ideal to accompany grilled red meats painted with aromatic herbs.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Wild strawberry and plum character with nuances of cracked pepper and nutmeg. Svelte and fresh, soft tannins, very approachable.
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Wine Spectator
A rich red, brightened by tangy, balsamico-infused acidity, this offers flavors of pureed black raspberry, plum sauce and dark chocolate, plus a savory underpinning of minerally iron, stone and loamy earth. Chalky-textured tannins firm the spiced finish.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
Deep ruby in color, the 2022 Merum Priorati Destí reveals aromas of savory spices, crushed rocks, and dried cherries. Bold and expressive on the palate, it delivers a powerful rush of ripe berries and well-integrated oak. Pair it with Carne de Porco à Alentejana—a traditional Portuguese pork stew—for a rustic and satisfying match that highlights the wine’s intensity and earthy complexity. (Tasted: July 20, 2025, San Francisco, CA)
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James Suckling
Spicy and peppery nose, with attractive peppercorns, ripe berries, currants and cherries. Flavorful and medium-bodied, with fine-grained tannins and a medium-long finish. Vegan.
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Vinous
The 2022 Destí from the Les Escomelles vineyard in Priorat shows ripeness without excess. Black fruit, plum jam, garrigue and lightly oxidative oak aromas appear with a faint note of red apple skin. It is dry, rich and chalky with a compact close. The wine lingers in a mature style.
Merum Priorati is one of the most important wine estates in Priorat, founded in 2004 by two Catalan families, and located in the east of the appellation around the pretty village of Porrera. The three vineyard plots (Les Foreses, Plana Marjot and Les Escomelles) cover a total of 103 hectares, but just 29ha are given over to vines, as this is one of the wildest, most rugged terrains where few vines thrive and those that do produce less than 1 kg of grapes per vine (and as low as 250g per vine for the older Garnacha and Cariñena plants). Vineyards here are not measured in hectares, but by numbers of vines planted, due to extreme terracing and contours on these stunning mountainsides. There isn't what you'd call soil more just a carpet of broken black slate called Licorella. Five grape varieties still manage to thrive here on the estate: Garnacha, Cariñena, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Impeccably made but not over polished, wines are truly hand-made: fermentation is in small, open top vats with long cuvasion, delivering wines which are intense and seriously complex against a backdrop of bright and vibrant modern fruit.
With bold fruit flavors and accents of sweet spice, Grenache, Syrah and Mourvèdre form the base of the classic Rhône Red Blend, while Carignan, Cinsault and Counoise often come in to play. Though they originated from France’s southern Rhône Valley, with some creative interpretation, Rhône blends have also become popular in other countries. Somm Secret—Putting their own local spin on the Rhône Red Blend, those from Priorat often include Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. In California, it is not uncommon to see Petite Sirah make an appearance.
Tiny and entirely composed of craggy, jagged and deeply terraced vineyards, Priorat is a Catalan wine-producing region that was virtually abandoned until the early 1990s. This Spanish wine's renaissance came with the arrival of one man, René Barbier, who recognized the region’s forgotten potential. He banded with five friends to create five “Clos” in the village of Gratallops. Their aim was to revive some of Priorat’s ancient Carignan vines, as well as plant new—mainly French—varieties. These winemakers were technically skilled, well-trained and locally inspired; not surprisingly their results were a far cry from the few rustic and overly fermented wines already produced.
This movement escalated Priorat’s popularity for a few reasons. Its new wines were modern and made with well-recognized varieties, namely old Carignan and Grenache blended with Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. When the demand arrived, scarcity commanded higher prices and as the region discovered its new acclaim, investors came running from near and far. Within ten years, the area under vine practically doubled.
Priorat’s steep slopes of licorella (brown and black slate) and quartzite soils, protection from the cold winds of the Siera de Monstant and a lack of water, leading to incredibly low vine yields, all work together to make the region’s wines unique. While similar blends could and are produced elsewhere, the mineral essence and unprecedented concentration of a Priorat wine is unmistakable.