Roda I Reserva 2021 Red

Which wine would you buy today to drink 20 years from now? Rioja 2021 would be a pretty safe bet: it's an outstanding vintage, with echoes of the quality of 2001. This isn’t just a cliché. Last week, we had the opportunity to sample the two vintages side by side at a vertical tasting hosted by Bodegas Roda.

The youngest producer in Haro's Barrio de la Estación, established there since the mid-1980s, has built its reputation on wines that benefit from ageing. It is hard to think of another winery so committed to showcasing the evolution of its Reservas through vertical tastings, including an international tour to mark its 20th anniversary.

Twenty years later, the story is repeating itself. The first event marking the winery’s 40th anniversary was a vertical tasting for trade professionals at the Wellington Hotel in Madrid. The flight spanning the longest period was Roda I, the deeply structured, full-flavoured Reserva with a distinctive black fruit character. Of the four vintages served – the challenging 1992, the excellent 2001 and 2011, and the current 2021 release, which is our Wine of the Week recommendation – we could not help noticing  the many similarities between 2001 and 2021.

Among Rioja’s 21st-century vintages, 2001 is perhaps the one that is evolving more slowly. It is remarkable how well it keeps its fruit and freshness, and how expressive it can be in wineries such as Roda, where meticulous attention is paid to both vineyard and cellar. When it was released, it was a tight wine with firm tannins, tremendous fruit intensity, and impressive potential. From a climatic perspective, 2001 was a perfect vintage, with slow ripening and just the right amount of rainfall (473 mm). There was also some poor fruit set, resulting in loose, well-ventilated bunches.

For its part, 2021 was an oasis of freshness in a changing climate increasingly marked by rising temperatures and extreme weather events. It was the year of Storm Filomena, which brought snow to much of Spain and left the vines with valuable water reserves to draw on during the dry summer. Temperatures were high, but not to the extremes experienced from 2022 onwards. Ideal conditions in September and October allowed the grapes to ripen slowly, and the harvest began on 22 September – a very different picture from the sweltering summer of 2026, when Roda started picking on 24 August.

There were differences, too. Whereas the 2001 vintage was made entirely from Tempranillo grapes, the 2021 blend includes 4% Graciano and 1% Garnacha. Graciano was introduced into the blend in 2011, a vintage with a distinctly Mediterranean character, as a way of countering the effects of climate change. However, the extra ripeness has not resulted in faster evolution. On the contrary, the quality of the fruit and the structure of the 2011 vintage suggested good ageing potential even in these warmer vintages.

By contrast, the 2021 vintage shines with vitality and freshness. It retains the black fruit character that defines the wine (blackberry and plum), but adds further layers of complexity, with notes of liquorice and dried herbs. It is an opulent, velvety, multilayered red, generous in fruit and with an amazing finish: the flavours continue to unfold even after the wine has been swallowed.

As spectacular as it may be now, the 2021 is a long-distance runner, just as the 2001 was in its day. The main difference is that the tannic structure feels much more refined in the 2021 vintage, which is likely due to improvements in texture made in recent years. It is hard to fathom why the 2021 vintage was rated Very Good rather than Excellent.

14.5% abv.
116,401 litres
€60 
Score: 95