“These three great wines are part of our history. The decision to release our Gran Reservas is very important for us and this vintage is wonderfully precise, intense, and very elegant” Lucia Pascual Fernández, 3rd generation winemaker
The Vintage The 2018 vintage is one of the finest in living memory for the Familia Fernández Rivera in Ribera del Duero, the only year ever to produce three Gran Reservas. The family describes the vintage as “just like the old days” with cool conditions that were quite unusual for our modern climate.
It began with the deep, hard winter so typical of the region, with low temperatures lasting well into the spring. Summer
was
particularly
picture-perfect
cool
nights
and
resulting
warm, in
lower
but
with
average
temperatures than recent years, producing intense and structured wines suitable for incredibly long ageing. The Autumn was unusually long, with the harvest extending to the end of October, promising added complexity and depth as these wines mature.
Millenium Gran Reserva 2018 “Quintessence of Ribera.” Ferran Canteles, Jancisrobinson.com
The Millenium Gran Reserva is sourced from the south-facing slope of Viña Alta Cascajo, with 50-60 year old vines 850m above sea level on rocky clay soils. This wine’s name pays homage to its first release in 2000, and it is the only wine from Tinto Pesquera to be aged in French oak barriques, offering more pungent spice, firmer tannins, and a real sense of class and polish.
On release, the palate is dense with ripe blackcurrant, clove, and earth, underlined with tobacco and mushrooms. It has a luscious texture with chalky tannins and an archetypal dark chocolate finish that lingers on the palate. With a few more years, this will become an incredibly suave bottle of wine, but the sense of weight and gravitas it displays now will surely last the test of time. This is an excellent example of the modern face of Ribera del Duero.
“The Fernández family has always had a well-deserved reputation for making reds that age gracefully in bottle and this Gran Reserva will certainly do that. Matured in new French wood, it's a focused, still youthful style with flavours of cassis and dark chocolate, plenty of chalky freshness and a layered, focused finish.” Tim Atkin MW
EP Price: £485 per 6x75cl
EP Price: £485 per 6x75cl
Alenza Gran Reserva 2018 “A wine of noble rusticity […] a bit like a ripe but fresh Chateauneuf-du-Pape” Josh Raynolds, Vinous Condado de Haza is the Fernández Rivera family’s second property in Ribera del Duero, 25km north-east of Pesquera near the town of Roa, right on the banks of the Duero river. Here the temperatures are usually 2-3°C cooler and the heavier clay soils are layered with more sand and gravel than in Pesquera de Duero, producing a more rustic, brooding style of wine.
The Alenza comes from the Maricalva Cotarro vineyard and is named after the family’s two founders Alejandro and Esperanza. While all of the family’s wines are made following traditional practices, the Alenza in particular harks back to a pre-modern style of wine, fermented in old open-topped vats with whole bunches to add aromatic lift and emphasise the wine’s naturally earthy, wild tannins.
While this wine is much lesser-known than the two Pesquera Gran Reservas, it is special in its own right: last made in 2009 and with only 6,000 bottles produced in 2018, this is a must-have for Ribera enthusiasts.
“Firm, serious and very intense, with plenty of tannic structure […] masses of colour, wild herb and dark berry concentration” Tim Atkin MW
Janus Gran Reserva 2018 “The Pétrus of Spain” Robert Parker Janus is, without a doubt, one of the greats of Spanish fine wine. This is the wine that captured the critic Robert Parker, launching Pesquera and Ribera del Duero to international fame. The 2018 is only the seventh-ever release of this wine in the 50-year history of the Estate, with the previous release, the 2003 vintage, now fifteen years ago. From the La Rendeja plot in Pesquera del Duero, Janus is grown on one of the best sites in the ‘golden triangle’ in the centre of the region, where the limestone soils rise to the surface at the tops of the tallest slopes in striking white. On release, the wine is a quite gigantic. Earthy, mineral, and smoky, the unctuous texture unfolds into complex spice with cardamom and toasted clove, and a touch of fresh mint. The huge tannins feel like they are struggling to hold this wine back, with the finish rumbling on for minutes. After a few moments with the wine, what stands out is the surprising poise behind the muscle, and the lasting impression is one of freshness. This hints at the wine’s future, as with age it will transform quite miraculously into a silky, decadent with wine with a sense of elegance, mineral tension, and supreme complexity. Last year, on tasting the legendary 1986, Spanish Master of Wine Pedro Torres described Janus as “one of the most gloriously deceptive wines in the region” due to this metamorphosis. This is a wine for the cellar and deserves to be tucked away by serious collectors for as long as they can resist.
“This is dense, smoky and rich, with toast and dried coconut aromas, some floral top notes, enticing Asian spices, dark berry and liquorice flavours and impressive structure and palate length” Tim Atkin MW “Bold, spicy nose with coconut oak, red and black fruit. Lively and fresh palate with herbal, floral and orchard fruit notes. A rather heart-stopping wine that encourages contemplation.” Decanter World Wine Awards
EP Price: £180 per 1x75cl
To enquire about your allocation for the 2023 releases from Tinto Pesquera, please contact your account manager or email clients@armitwines.co.uk at your earliest convenience.
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