2007 Roda Reserva

The 2007 Roda Reserva is a blend of 89% Tempranillo, 8% Garnacha and 3% Graciano with half the crop aged in new oak for 16 months. It has a ripe, dark berry, espresso and cassis bouquet that unfolds nicely in the glass and demonstrates more complexity and harmony than the previous vintages. The palate is medium-bodied with taut tannins. It displays fine acidity with clean fruit flavors of wild strawberry, raspberry, tart red cherries and a touch of citrus peel. It has a pleasing symmetry to it, while it offers more persistence than the 2006. Drink now-2019. The wines from Bodegas Roda should need no introduction. “We want to offer consistency,” winemaker Gonzalo Lainez told me. “We own and control 28 different vineyards and we choose the best seventeen every year. The Reserva is more red fruit character, more gastronomic. Other single vineyards that have a black fruit character are not so easy to find at an early stage and are blended into Roda I. So vineyards can end up in either, or be sold off. We work under three tenets. We like acidity in our wines, the oak must play a secondary role and the most important, supple tannins.” I enjoyed the wines of Roda, but to be frank, I often found myself searching for a sense of personality, as if the wines were somehow pre-designed instead of working with what Mother Nature gifts. They are highly pleasurable, but in an age where high-end consumers are looking for wines that say something, I would like to see the wines from Roda opening their mouths. Moreover, I do detect the oak too often, analogous to a supporting actor reading the leading actor’s lines. These tasting notes derive from samples that were mostly tasted twice in the UK. Importer: Kobrand, New York, NY; www.kobrandwine.com

97% Tempranillo, 3% Graciano. Roda uses vines over 30 years old, the yields are kept to a very low 1.5kg per vine to encourage phenolic maturity. The grapes from each parcel are fermented and matured separately in oak for 18 months. Cold soak pre-fermentation maceration is utilised to extract favourable colour and ripe tannins. Alcoholic fermentation at high temperatures (up to 30 °C), long macerations, and traditional Burgundian vinification techniques: pumping over and stirring of the lees are employed. Residual sugar: 1 g/l. Winemaker: Agustin Santolaya. Full and rich and opulent with the American oak dominating. Lots of chew on the end. Full of life. (JR)

Youthful purple. Fresh dark berry and cherry aromas are complicated by olive, vanilla and woodsmoke. Becomes spicier with air and offers pliant dark fruit and bitter chocolate flavors. Open-knit and smooth in texture, with very good finishing grip and spicy persistence. This will be drinking well soon.