While being one of the youngest estates in Rioja, Bodegas Roda has quickly become one of its finest and certainly most innovative. The estate was set up in 1987. The name Roda is the contraction of the two owners’ names, Mario Rottlant Solá and Carmen Daurella Aguilera.
The first wines produced come from the 1992 vintage. Taking a different concept to more traditional Rioja estates, the two flagship wines Roda I and Roda II were defined by their flavour profiles. Roda I is based around a darker black fruit profile and Roda II (now known simply as Roda) is based around a lighter, red fruit profile.
The fruit comes from various vineyards around Rioja, with the majority near the winery in Haro. They manage a total 120 hectares, of which 70 are owned by the estate. All the vineyards are located at between 380 and 650 metres above sea level.
The distinct structural and flavour profiles of each wine has always determined how the wines are bottled and labelled, rather than how long they’ve spent in oak, as is much more typical of the region. Both Roda and Roda I are labelled as Reserva.
Their top wine Cirsion was introduced in 1998. Made only from the oldest, finest clones of Tempranillo (and later Graciano), the concept is about fruit purity and natural concentration, rather than ageing in oak. Cirsion in fact spends the shortest amount of time in oak of all Roda’s cuvées – typically around eight months.
The other wine in the portfolio is Sela, a Rioja made from the younger vines on the estate, first introduced in the 2008 vintage.
In line with the estate’s pioneering spirit, the winery has been involved in a number of ongoing research projects around sustainable viticulture, solar thermal technology, reduction of sulphur dioxide use in wine, as well as developing non-GMO yeast strains that can naturally lower alcohol production during fermentation.
