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Wine for Normal People

Ep 181: Laura Catena, The Leading Lady of Argentine Wine

Wine for Normal People

Wine for Normal People

Arts, Food

4.6 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 8 March 2017

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The first in a series for Women's History Month, I speak to Laura Catena of Bodegas Catena Zapata in Mendoza, Argentina. We discuss her life as a doctor, a mom, and the head of a wine empire, the history of Malbec and how her family aided the meteoric rise of Argentine wine and of the comeback of the Malbec grape around the world. 

A fun, sharp-as-a-tack woman, you'll learn a ton about Malbec, Mendoza, and a few life lessons from this fascinating podcast! 

 

Laura's History and Background on the Catena Family

  • Her life as a doctor and the bridge between medicine and wine
  • Her career pivot to the wine and becoming "the wine doctor" for her country and family
  • Historical perspective
    • The Catena family history in wine
    • The history with Malbec and history of Catena and Malbec
  • Her dad and her homage to him: his pride of country and why he has been so successful

 

Malbec and it's Rich History

  • Malbec Studies
    • Pre-phylloxera clippings
    • Flavors based on altitude/studies on altitude
    • The sides of Malbec: the agebility factor, and the evolution of the grape
    • Old v New vines: the real differences
      • Luca: Laura's own project of all old vine wine, managed separately and small and how it fosters Argentinean pride

 

Laura's Advice on Doing it All

  • How she handles being a mom, a doctor, and running a major wine company
    • The power of the B+
    • The balance of kids and work and life advice on spouses, marriage, and kids

 

Making Wine in Mendoza

  • High altitude growing and Catena's role: Argentina has distinctive regions – b/c of the altitude huge variations in climates, move faster from warmer to colder
  • Nicolas's (her dad's) altitude bet and its payoff – combination, altitude, latitude, plant material
  • Sub-regions:
    • Lujan de Cuyo= old vines, clay soils, makes some good stuff
    • Uco Valley = Key region for quality
      • Sub-regions: Tupungato, Alta Mira, La Consulta, Gualtallary

 

The Wine Culture of Argentina and the Wines of Catena

  • Alamos: Gallo family's distribution and the benefits of the relationship for the Catenas. The importance of keeping the small producers alive. The paradox of being big and supporting small producers
  • Lafite-Rothschild and Catena: Bodegas CARO wines
  • Luca: Laura's project
  • Bodega Catena Zapata
    • Catena – classic Malbec, $20
    • Catena Alta – historic rows of vines
    • Catena Zapata/Adrianna Vineyards – small parcels, harvest plant by plant, hand harvested

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Thanks for downloading Wine for Normal People radio.

0:10.3

It's the podcast for people who like wine, but not the snobbery that goes with it.

0:15.8

I'm Elizabeth Schneider, a certified Silmayet and certified specialist of wine.

0:19.9

And I'm MC Ice, just a wine-loving normal person.

0:22.6

Today, we have one of the biggest powerhouse women in the wine industry with us.

0:29.6

Laura Katena, the face of Argentine wine, she's one of the most accomplished people you'll ever meet or hear from. She's a Harvard and Stanford graduate,

0:40.3

an emergency medicine physician at UC San Francisco, a mom in her spare time. She happens also to be

0:48.1

the general director of Bodega Catena Zapata and Luca Winery in Mendoza.

0:55.0

Argentina, Argentina, very well.

0:59.0

But not Argentinian-Spanual.

1:00.0

I can't speak your kind of, we'll talk about that in a second.

1:05.0

So she is amazing and she and her family are famed for turning the tide in Argentina, making it a global force in the wine world, increasing quality, getting everything from being all domestic consumption, which, you know, it must have been fun times then, right?

1:21.6

And then just relentlessly studying the land. These are super smart people, a super smart family. And Laura is also, again,

1:30.1

in all of her free time, an author, a speaker, she's not at all busy. Thank you. Welcome,

1:35.5

Laura. It's such an honor to have you. Thank you very much, Elizabeth. It's fun to be here with you.

1:40.3

You have an amazing life. We talked a little bit before the podcast but you are such a busy

1:46.1

woman so how did you go from Mendoza to then Harvard and Stanford and sort of then wind up back

1:55.1

again and tell us your story please well you know sometimes I say to my father, I say, why didn't you tell me how much

2:02.7

fun it was to make wine? And he said, had I told you, because he knows I'm very rebellious,

2:09.6

he said, had I told you to come work with me, you wouldn't be working with me today. So I had to

2:13.7

let you go so that you would come back. But, you know, basically when I was studying, when I was at Harvard, I really enjoyed science. I also enjoyed humanities. But most of all, you know, like I think many people of that age, you know, in their late teens, early 20s, I wanted to make a difference in the world. And I've changed my mind since then, but at that time, I thought,

2:35.7

well, the best way to help the world is by being a doctor. And so I volunteered and I worked at

...

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