Firstly, he took half the bunches and placed them whole into the old stone wine press to make wine in the traditional way. Then he de-stemmed the remaining grapes and fermented them in the winery’s stainless steel tanks.

Both wines satisfied their maker. The first wine, which was made in the traditional way, was only sold in Spain. The second, however, was the first Pesquera wine to be exported and opened up the way to the winery’s world-wide renown in the wine world.

But Alejandro wanted to go just a little bit further. He mixed the last 2,000 litres of each kind of wine in equal measures and placed the resulting wine to “rest” for three years in old American oak barrels. The end result was a totally unique, extraordinarily complex and balanced wine bottled in 1986 that was different from the rest.

The wine was named “Janus” after the Roman god of doors, thresholds (arrivals and departures), communication routes and anything that has a beginning. Janus is a two-faced god who looks towards both the past and the future, just like the wine that carries his name and merges together ancient and modern winemaking techniques perfectly while revealing the best of each.

Only 6,000 bottles were produced during the first Janus vintage in 1986, which appeared in the autumn of 1988.