RODA 1 Blanco 2020
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- Region:
- Rioja
- Grape Variety:
- Garnacha Blanco
- Grape Variety:
- Viura
- Grape Variety:
- Malvasia
- Bottle Size:
- 750ml
- ABV:
- 14%
- Vintage:
- 2020
While the world shut down in March Nature followed its own path. 2020 was a humid vintage in which it rained 635 mm in the village of Haro. Winter was sufficiently warm, although marked by unpleasant fogs. Spring was mild and very rainy. Around 200 mm of rain were gathered between March and April. Bud break happened ahead of time. May was less humid with high temperatures. Flowering was advanced for 15 days. The first half of June was cold and humid with very low minimum temperatures (below 10oC).Clusters had a severe Downy Mildew attack (that didn’t produce stains on leaves), that affected entire areas with important crop losses. On June the 12th the D.O. Ca limited for the first time the yields to 90% because of COVID-19. Intermittent rains continued and Mildew got extended. July was cool at the beginning with high temperatures at its end. Veraison began on July 20th, more than two weeks in advance. Ripening was excellent, the weather helped. Wines have a very good quality, good concentration, fine tannins, showing up its delicacy at an early stage as well as an outstanding freshness.
Rioja’s Bodegas Roda has unveiled its first commercially available white wine: Roda I Blanco 2019, from what the winery describes as “one of the best vintages of the 21st century”. The new wine is a field blend of old vines, dominated by Viura (more than 90%) and supplemented by Malvasia and Garnacha Blanca, sourced from a variety of high-altitude sloping plots – cabezadas – around Haro and surrounding villages in the north-west of Rioja.
Bodegas Roda managing director Agustín Santolaya said the winery had been experimenting with making white wine for some years.
“We had access to old vines and we have been doing tests, but we ended up drinking the wine ourselves,” he said. “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.”
On the 2019 vintage:
95 points James Suckling (“Very serious”)
95 points Guía Peñín
94 points Decanter (“everything is in the right place in this wine”)
93 points The Wine Advocate
On the 2020 vintage:
95 points Guía Peñín
95 points James Suckling - Top 100 Wines of Spain 2023
96 points Guía Gourmets
95 points Guía Proensa
