Rioja is often classified into traditional and modern styles. While traditional Rioja is marked by long aging in (older) American oak, modern Rioja tends to be defined by shorter aging in often new French barriques, and a more extracted style. Like most neat divisions, it breaks down on close analysis, but nevertheless Bodegas Roda is associated with the modern camp. It certainly isn`t one of the historical bodegas; it was founded in 1986 by a married couple of wine merchants from Barcelona, Mario Rotllant and Carmen Daurella, who sought to create something special. They bought old vineyards across Rioja Alta, planted some new ones, and built a bodega on a hillside that could run on gravity-fed principles. Their use of only French oak seems to put them square in the modernist camp.

And yet there is much about Roda that speaks of a love of a tradition. That new bodega sits on top of a very old cellar, bang in the middle of Haro`s station district where most of the oldest bodegas cluster. The vineyards Roda has sought out and acquired are made up of old bush vines of Rioja`s traditional varieties. And while their wines when young may seem denser and more forceful, more defined by black fruit, than one would expect from a `traditional` Rioja, as these wines age they move unmistakably towards what is thought of as the traditional style.

While the founders have since divorced, winemaking continues seamlessly under Agustin Santolaya and his team. I am in total admiration of Agustín and his team. Not only do they turn out brilliant iterations of Roda vintage in, vintage out, they have also gained huge respect for their ground-breaking research into Tempranilo. In the wake of their efforts, Roda has become one of the standout bodegas on the modern Rioja scene. (NT 08/08/23)