In front of me are six glasses; across the table sits my panel of Master Sommeliers scrutinizing my performance for my Advanced Sommelier exam. One of them calls the two-minute mark, the moment that my attention turns to the sixth glass. Taking a deep breath, I assess the sight and note the dark color and magenta rim. I raise the glass to my nose and smile—familiar notes of crushed violets, mulberry, and green coffee beans. Relieved, I recognize a memorable friend in the glass and confidently call the wine: Malbec, New World, Argentina, Mendoza region, 2012. As the wine director at an Argentine-inspired steakhouse, I sold easily over ten or twelve cases of Malbec a week. We were so successful with the Catena Malbec that I was gifted a signed edition of Dr. Laura Catena’s Vino Argentino. It's the first wine book on Argentinian wine published by an international publishing house; she had signed it, and enclosed was a signed letter from her father, Nicolás Catena. This thoughtful thank-you gift is one of my most cherished possessions in my library. The man is a legend in the wine world for how he transformed wine in Argentina.
A third-generation Argentinian of Italian heritage, when Nicolás Catena’s grandfather immigrated to Argentina, he founded the family winery in 1902—we know it today as Bodega Catena Zapata. Initially, the wine was consumed locally, which was still the case when Nicolás Catena left in the early 1980s for UC Berkeley for a sabbatical as a visiting professor in economics. He spent time in Napa Valley and befriended Robert Mondavi, who inspired him with how they had elevated California wines to excel on the international stage. Catena returned home with bold ideas to incorporate these newly learned best practices at the family winery in Mendoza, Argentina.
His return and implementation of these ideas in 1983 would spark the Argentinian wine revolution. As an economics professor in a country with limited bank credit at the time to support these changes, what he was about to undertake was either incredibly brave or boldly naïve. His instinct was spot-on, and Argentinian wine would never be the same. The ideas that he brought back were to bring a high level of sanitation to the wineries, replacing the old fermenters with small, temperature-controlled stainless-steel tanks, planting vines on higher elevation sites, and reducing yields through pruning, fertilization, and irrigation practices. Originally, he planned on focusing his plantings on Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay (inspired by Napa) and on the uninspired Malbec of time. By integrating the new practices, he took innocuous bulk wine and made rich, concentrated, complex wines from grapes where the vines struggle, and the vinification is clean and modern.
Catena came home and changed the course of history for a grape with deep historical roots. Malbec was the basis for much of the Argentinian bulk wine and was often found to be fruitless, oxidized, and produced in an old Italian style, being aged in large oak barrels for three or four years. A French grape in origin, in 1868, French agronomist Michel Aimé Pouget brought it over at the request of the provincial governor, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento. He was tasked with sourcing vines from Bordeaux to upgrade the wines produced in Argentina. Pouget also brought Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. These were to compete with what the Spanish had brought centuries before to make communion wine, the easily grown Criolla Grande (Mission) grape. Here is where Malbec's history brings up a familiar and surprising connection: the homeland for this grape is Cahors, France, also the homeland of Eleanor of Aquitaine. It became fashionable to grow Malbec in France when a 15-year-old Eleanor married King Louis VII of France. After that marriage dissolved, she married King Henry II, and Malbec's renown traveled to England. The amount of Malbec consumed at Eleanor and Henry’s wedding was legendary (see my previous blog about Eleanor and those wine fountains). It was known as "Black Wine" due to its color and became one of the five Bordeaux grapes but lost acreage after the phylloxera outbreak when its devastated vines were not replanted, and Merlot replaced it. Pouget’s actions (along with Malbec cuttings from immigrants) would eventually lead to Malbec’s Renaissance. Beautifully, in honor of this fact, Catena Zapata makes a Malbec Argentino that features important figures in the history of Argentinian Malbec, and Eleanor's image represents the birth of Malbec in Cahors.
Take this historic grape and plant it in the terroir of a warmer climate, in higher-elevation vineyards nestled along the edges of the Andes mountains, with highly calibrated irrigation. Suddenly, Malbec thrives like never before. So, as you enjoy a rich and nuanced Argentinian Malbec with grilled steak (or umami-rich mushrooms as Dr. Laura Catena recommends), think of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Michel Aimé Pouget, and immigrants alike for the Malbec plantings, Robert Mondavi, and Nicolás Catena for what is in the glass. It is a wine that intertwines history, terroir, legacy, and passion. For me, it is my trusted friend of a wine that solidified my successful Advanced Sommelier flight.
I love Argentina, and I know you would, too. So, if you are unaware or on the fence, click here to check out Vine Society's upcoming Wine Travel Experience in March 2025 and sign up!
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