Bodegas Roda has launched Roda I Blanco 2019, their first commercially available white wine.
Described by the winery as “one of the best vintages of the 21st century,” the wine is crafted with a blend of old vines, dominated by Viura, supplemented by Malvasia and Garnacha Blanca, and sourced from a variety of high-altitude sloping plots – cabezadas – around Haro and surrounding villages in the north-west of Rioja.
“We had access to old vines and we have been doing tests, but we ended up drinking the wine ourselves,” said Bodegas Roda managing director Agustín Santolaya. “In 2016, one of the owners [Mario Rottlant] got very serious and said: ‘I want a white Roda and I want it soon.’ So we had to get on with it.”
The winery had been experimenting for years, trying to produce a product different from their traditional oxidative style or the typical summer white. “The fact that we are presenting the wine as summer is about to end is a statement,” said Santolaya. “We wanted a wine that could go well with food, so we wanted volume, but we also wanted freshness.”
Bodegas Roda initially experimented with smaller French oak barriques, but found the wood influence too heavy. Therefore fermentation took place in small French oak fermenters before maturation for 18 months in a combination of the 4,000-liter fermenters and 500-liter French oak bocoyes, not all of them new.
“Excess is a word we’d rather not use,” explained Santolaya. “The oak, we say, is well-integrated and not too aggressive. We try to be careful with it because sometimes it can really dominate.”
With only 4000 bottles available, the Bodegas Roda I Blanco 2019 retails for £60 and it is available in the UK via Mentzendorff.
For more information, check out Bodegas Rodas’ official website.