July 07, 2010
Interview with Laura Catena

Bodega Catena Zapata in Mendoza, Argentina

This San Francisco physician is one of the leading figures on the Argentine wine scene.
Article written by Catherine Fallis, MS
I've known Laura Catena for years through the wine industry and see her fairly often, since we live near each other in San Francisco. She leaves as much a of a lasting impression as the wines produced by her Argentine family. She is obviously passionate about the varied aspects of her life, with wine, medicine and family topping the list. Everything she does is carefully planned out far in advance. This is a reflection of the influence of her father, Nicolas, but also of her medical training: she is an emergency room obstetrician/gynecologist at UCSF Medical Center and is as meticulous in her research of medical subjects as she is with wine-related issues. The wines of Catena Zapata have a loyal following not only at UCSF but at top restaurants around the United States and the world.

Q: You have on of the more interesting educational backgrounds in the wine industry. How did your various passions develop, and how is your time divided among family, medicine and winemaking these days?
A: I grew up in Argentina and then finished high school in Berkeley, California. Then I went to Havard University. I had spent a lot of time in high school in France and when I was 14, I spent an entire summer studying art by myself, living with a family, taking the subway all over Paris. So I was much more of a humanities-oriented person, but when I got to Harvard, the science was so interesting that I decided to study biology.
Q:Did your father try to talk you into working in the wine business?
A: When I was in my early 20s in medical school, my dad and I would get together and drink through all the great wine in the worls. He would always ask my questions about how Americans would respond to something or asky my opinion about labels. It was always this sort of informal advice I would give him, because I was living here. So by the time I was in my late 20s, I had finished my residency, and my family needed someone to go to a wine show. With my personality, I started thinking, "Well, why aren't they doing this?" and "I saw this really interesting think they're doing in California or in France; why aren't we doing this in Argentina?" I started getting involved because I felt like I needed to help my dad. Now, for the last five years, I work part-time as a doctor and then spend about four months in Argentina and the rest traveling to other parts of the world.
Q: How has medicine affected your winemaking?
A: Medicine is what brings me down to earth. When you're working in a business, you're always looking at the cost of this, the cost of that, the profit, the sales numbers. When I go to the hospital, I see people suffering and how, in the end, none of this is that important-it is each humand and what we can do for our neighbors, our family, the people we see in the coffee shop.
I spend a lot of my time reading journals, staying up-to-date in medicine, because in medicine, you have to. But that actually helps me in wine, too, because our winery is very rigorous with people. If somebody says, "I want to use this yeast or this rootstock-I don't want to use SO4, I want to use Paulsen," I say, "Oka, why?" They give me a reason and I say, "I need more than that. Tell me the experience in Australia, in South Africa, in Chile and in Europe. They all have different soils. Ours is probably more similar to Washington state. What is the rootstock in Washington state?" And everybody is shocked that I'm asking all these questions, but I'm trained to make a decision based on true information. I don't take an answer lightly; I think a lot before doing something. The other think medicine teaches you is "I don't know." In medicine, you never say you know something when you don't, whereas I think that in the business world, there's a lot of bluffing.
Q: How did the family enterprise expand into the Luca and Tikal lines?
A: Luca is my own project that I started in 1998 (the first vintage was 1999). I was convinced that great wines could be made from old-vine grower grapes, because over 40% of Mendoza's vineyards are owned by small, multigenerational families with less than 12 acres of land. Nobody else believed this in Argentina. So I spent one season driving around Mendoza and tasting grapes and making deals with growers. Today, I truly believe that we are making some of Mendoza's best wines from these gorgeous old vineyards, which, in the past, had been selling their grapes in bulk.
Tikal is my brother Ernesto's project, which he manages independently. His Patriota was the first high-priced Bonarda-Malbec to make waves in the U.S. I love his wines. He uses some grower grapes, but also has a gorgeous vineyard in the southern Uco Valley named Tikal.
Q: What are Argentina's strengths and weaknesses in terms of marketing to Americans, especially the restaurant trade? 
A: The strength is really the fact that we provide good value. People who put our wine on the list do well with their customers. The weakness is potentially that a lot of people still don't know about Argentina, so somebody might not order the wine because they've never heard of it. I think that is really changing, though. The exchange-rate crisis made it a lot cheaper to visit, and more people come back and tell their friends to try Argentine wines. In 2008, Argentine wine exports to the U.S. grew by 30% and in 2009, by 20%. Argentine Malbec is the fastest-growing wine import to the U.S. today. How do you explain that? to me, it is the quality, plus the fact that it's become known. My mother-in-law is from Iowa, and she used to say, "Why is it that everybody is always talking about Chilean wine and nobody's talking about Argentine wine?" That was five years ago. Now, she's sending me articles all the time about Argentine wine.
Q: How would you advise American sommeliers to use your own wines?
A: People are willing to experiement, so if you list a Malbec or Torrontes by the glass, you're encouraging people to try that, and this could be their introduction to Argentine wine. I think consumers love a restaurant that gives them something new that tastes spectacular-an ace in the hole.