Tinto Pesquera Janus Gran Reserva 2018

Intriguingly named after the gatekeeper Roman god, Janus, with his two heads giving him the ability to observe all comings and goings, this singular wine also looks to the past and future, as ancient and modern wine-making processes have been combined in its production. It started after an experiment in 1982, a year with a particularly good harvest, when Alejandro Fernández decided to make two distinct wines from the same grapes. In the old traditional way, half the clusters went into his old wine press whole, and the other half were de-stemmed and fermented in stainless steel tanks. The first wine was released for the home market, but the second wine was his first attempt at exporting. An equal amount of the remains of each wine was allowed to age for three years in old American oak barrels and in 1986 Janus appeared - a remarkably complex, balanced wine, with velvety-rich roundness and highly nuanced. It is only produced when the harvest culminates in some exceptional grapes, and it proves distinctly different within the range.