A wine business dated 1908
Domingo Campos del Santo came from Soria and put down roots in Córdoba. Francisco Solano Márquez, who wrote the house's 2008 book, calls him an enterprising man with an eye on the future.[4]
Four dates run through this story, and each means something different:
That book appeared a century after the date it starts from, and the house's own website counts its cooking from the same year.[5] Take 1908 as the founding claim: a consistent one, but the house's own.
Today the site combines old houses and typical Cordovan courtyards from various eras in the Axerquía, near the Julio Romero de Torres Museum, and its warehouses and courtyards come from the early wine cellar.[6] Courtyards of different periods folded into one house are why Campos reads as a warren rather than a single grand building.
At Bodegas Campos the cellar's early warehouses and courtyards now serve as dining and event rooms.[7] Inside, the eye lands on rows of oak botas signed by distinguished visitors and a collection of bullfighting posters.[8] Solano Márquez calls the accumulation of mementos in the rooms and galleries a popular museum.[9]
A signed barrel proves who ate there, not when the cellar opened. Enjoy the memorabilia as atmosphere and keep the 1908 date apart from it.
Where to eat · Restaurant
Bodegas Campos
Local guide to Bodegas Campos, Córdoba's 1908 gastronomic landmark: real prices (€25–40), opening hours, oxtail recipe, and how to book a patio table.
Read against the rest of this story, the Campos claim is the oldest and the least checkable. Casa Rubio's 1920 and Casa Pepe's 1928 come with owners, nicknames and sale dates. Campos comes with a founder, a book and a house that has gone on collecting things for more than a century. That is fine evidence for atmosphere. For a date, it is thin.
Campos dates itself to 1908, before Montilla-Moriles had legal names
Campos opened into a wine country that had not yet agreed what to call itself. The name Montilla began to establish itself for the region's wines only from the mid-19th century, through international competitions.[10]
The next names came late. The town of Zapateros became Moriles in 1912, four years after Campos's founding date,[11] and the Wine and Vineyard Statute of 1932 gave both Montilla and Moriles legal protection.[12] Even then the machinery lagged. The Civil War and bureaucratic delays meant the Regulating Council took effect only in December 1944, with its regulations approved in October 1945.[13]
- 1908
Campos dates its beginnings
A wine business under Domingo Campos del Santo.[1]
- 1912
Zapateros becomes Moriles
The town takes the name the wine region now uses.[11]
- 1920
Casa Rubio's tavern dated
Then the Taberna de El Cojo de San Nicolás.[2]
- 1928
Casa Pepe changes hands
Pepe Giménex Aroca buys a house that was already a tavern.[14]
- 1932
- 1944
Regulating Council effective
Founded in December, regulations approved the following October.[13]
- 1995
Campos taberna opens
Beside the main entrance of the historic house.[3]
That late start still shapes the region's quarrel with Jerez over who may use the word amontillado. It also changes how to read the houses in this story. The 1908, 1920 and 1928 dates all fall before the 1932 statute, so each of them was pouring into a trade whose names were still being settled.
Twelve years separate the statute from a working council. Protection on paper came first, and the body to administer it followed after a war. For a tavern keeper in 1932 that meant the names were safe in law while the machinery behind them did not yet exist.
Casa Rubio: from El Cojo to El Rubio
Casa Rubio dates to 1920, when the tavern was known as the Taberna de El Cojo de San Nicolás, a nickname that translates as the lame man of San Nicolás. The city, the regional tourism authorities and the restaurant itself all repeat the year.[2][16][17]
The name changed with the owner. In 1932 José María Jiménez Márquez, known as El Rubio, bought the tavern, and it has carried his nickname since.[15] The calendar rhymes with the wine law: 1932 is also the year the statute protected Montilla and Moriles.[12]
The building is newer than the story. Miguel Cabezas Morón rebuilt and modernised the tavern in 2001 and gave it the form it has now.[18] So Casa Rubio holds three different kinds of date: 1920 for the business, 1932 for the name, 2001 for what you see. When a Córdoba taberna says "since", ask whether it means the business, the name or the walls.
Twelve years sit between the tavern's first date and its new name. One sale was enough to replace the old name with the buyer's nickname. Campos went the other way and still carries its founder's surname.
Casa Pepe de la Judería: bought in 1928, a tavern already
Pepe Giménex Aroca bought what is now Casa Pepe de la Judería in 1928, but it was already a tavern under another name.[14] The house's own website counts its life from that year, as a meeting point for Córdobans and travellers.[19]
So 1928 marks a change of hands, not a first opening. That is the honest way to read most "since" dates in the old town, and the reason this history keeps asking who bought what.
The tavern's best-told anecdote concerns its most famous guest. It is said to have welcomed Angelo Roncalli, then nuncio in Paris and later Pope John XXIII, as an ordinary tourist.[20] Treat it as tavern lore. Either way, Casa Pepe de la Judería is a good illustration of how a Córdoba tavern collects visitors and stories long before anyone writes either down.
Deep dive · Article
A 1908 Córdoba Ad Offered Flamenquín. Is It the Dish We Eat Now?
The word flamenquín appears in a Córdoba newspaper in 1908; the only dated recipe story is Andújar 1939. What the record proves, and why both towns claim it.
Casa Pepe's sale in 1928 and Casa Rubio's in 1932 sit four years apart, both in the run-up to Córdoba's wine names being fixed in law. It is tempting to call that a pattern. Two sales do not make one, but they show how much of the old town's tavern history is really a history of owners.
1995: a new taberna in an old house
The Bodegas Campos taberna opened its doors at the beginning of 1995, next to the main entrance of the historic house.[3] Its pitch was nostalgia on purpose: the atmosphere of the old Cordovan taverns, described as "main square, gossip shop and even a bit academic".[21]
The taberna is a revival, then, of a form that Casa Rubio and Casa Pepe never stopped being. A 1920 tavern and a 1928 tavern were the real thing before anyone thought to sell the idea. Campos sold the idea in 1995 and, with a house full of signed barrels behind it, sold it well.
Across the century the pattern is consistent: a cellar dated 1908, taverns dated 1920 and 1928, a wine law in 1932, a bar built to feel old in 1995. Each date is a different kind of claim, and the useful skill is knowing which. To test them against the rooms themselves:
- The Campos taberna for the 1995 revival, beside the main entrance
- Casa Rubio for the 1920 business and the 1932 name
- Casa Pepe de la Judería for the 1928 change of hands
- Taberna La Fuenseca if the taberna format is what you came for
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For a wider route across the old town's counters, the best tapas bars in Córdoba is the place to start.
Solano Márquez's 2008 book arrived thirteen years after the taberna opened. The house was already staging its past before it had a published account of it, and that order of events is the fairest one-line summary of the place.