In April of this year she was elected honorary president of WSET, the acronym for the Wine & Spirit Education Trust, the most important organization with the largest number of students in the world; They educate about wine for end consumers and people in the wine trade, leading courses and exams, also in the field of spirits and sake. In her role as ambassador for this prestigious London-based entity, she supports its successful mission. A month earlier she received the Excellence Award, awarded by Meininger magazine for her work in sustainability and raising the level of Argentine wine in the world, in addition to focusing on the study of terroir, plots and soils. In 1995, Laura Catena -fourth generation of Mendoza winegrowers, the Catena Zapata– founded the Catena Institute of Wine, appointed associate researcher of the famous Institute of Masters of Wine (IMW). A priority objective of the institute is research to achieve high quality wines at high altitudes. And it was a mission accomplished. Wines were created that today are among the best in the world.
Laura studied medicine and biology; As soon as she took over the family winery, it was clear that she would focus on sustainability. Her winery was also selected as the best in the world in the international ranking of the World’s Best Vineyards (WBV), which qualifies the best wine tourism experiences. As a writer she published Vino Argentino, An Insider’s Guide to the Wines and Wine Country of Argentina, published by Chronicle Books (2010), with subsequent versions in Spanish and Portuguese (2011). She also Gold in the Vineyards and Malbec Mon Amour, co-authored with Alejandro Vigil. And although she comes and goes around the world, she was born in Mendoza where she spent her childhood with her grandfather Domingo Vicente, in the family winery in the small district of La Libertad. In 1988 she graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University and later earned her M.D. degree from Stanford University. Today she is the general director of Catena Zapata.
News: One of his passions is wine, but he also made time to work in the pediatric ward at the California Pacific Medical Center hospital in San Francisco and start a family. How did he reconcile it?
Laura Catena: I lived 25 years as a doctor and winemaker. What I learned about medicine helped me with wine and vice versa; Sometimes doctors forget that we are employees and have to provide a service for which they pay us. I think you have to work with wine customers and treat patients the same way. Both in the warehouse and in medical emergencies where we have very critical patients, we have to work as a team. No less important is empathy. I thought that was going to be what I would miss most about being a doctor, this helping someone and how good it feels. But I realized that it can occur in any work environment. I started medical practices in 1990 and worked my last shifts in early 2020. I was an emergency physician for almost 30 years until 2019. My father had turned 80. When I asked him if I should leave medicine, he always told me that he would never ask me It was my decision to dedicate myself more to the winery. For the last 10 years I did emergency pediatrics and had a position in a clinic for the homeless. The pandemic came and I worked until February 2020. It was coincidental; They closed the clinic and left me free 24×7 to dedicate myself to the winery.
News: Her choice was to be a doctor and wine was imposed by tradition.
Catena: My choice was to be a doctor; I was not planning to work with my father, but I ended up falling in love with wine and realizing that this tradition started by my great-grandfather Nicolás, who arrived from Italy in 1902, I had to follow. I led a double life between medicine and wine. Now I am the doctor for my family and friends. One never stops being a doctor.
News: What is your job when you are in Mendoza and what is your job when you are in California?
Catena: A quarter of the year I am traveling, representing our wines. When I am in Mendoza I do more tastings and I am more in the vineyard. In California I work answering emails or on new projects. In wine, one is not doing everything, all the time, because it has its own particular rhythm. There is the harvest, the fermentation, the moments in which the blends are made… I am present in the harvest and in the blends. But after the wine you have to leave it a little calm, you don’t have to intervene or try to modify it.
News: When are you with your children and what do they do?
Catena: When I’m at home in San Francisco, I’m a present mom. With my son Luka (25), who is doing a PhD in Organic Chemistry at UCLA, we chat about his experiments in the laboratory and science in general. With Dante (22), who studies Politics, Philosophy and Economics at the Claremont McKenna School, also in California, we talk about international issues and they are important for the wine business since we sell to 65 countries. And with my daughter Nicola (18), who is a History and Art student at UC Berkeley – she has just started – we also talk about international topics and especially art and literature, which are two of my passions.
News: What does your husband Daniel McDermott do?
Catena: We are the same age, he is a doctor and a golfer. He plays a lot of tournaments. They say there are golf widows and I am one of them! (laughs) But happy, because for him it is a passion that leads him to travel and so he doesn’t complain about how much I travel.
News: He lived in Buenos Aires, USA, France and also in Africa.
Catena: I had studied French at the National School of Buenos Aires – I loved that school and cried when I had to leave – where a spectacular teacher motivated me to read books in French. We lived in Buenos Aires for about 4 years until we went to the USA, in the early 80s. My father was afraid of the violence and kidnappings during the military dictatorship. I continued studying at Berkeley and did very well. Then I did an exchange and stayed with a family in Paris – I studied arts at the Pompidou Center – and then I lived in the countryside. I was fascinated by the country’s culture, its food, although at that time I didn’t drink wine. When I graduated as a doctor I joined a group that worked with people who lived on the streets and used drugs. I spent time in Senegal – while I was at Harvard – and upon graduating I went to Kenya where I taught.
News: Alejandro Vigil, the multi-award-winning winemaker at your winery, is 50 years old and has been working with you for 20 years. How does that bond last?
Catena: We are both hyper active; We have mutual respect and admiration. He has a very scientific training, innovation and respect for history are in our blood. We practice the Socratic method, we ask ourselves, we answer ourselves – with great intellectual honesty – we look for the solution and forget whose idea it was.
News: What was your greatest contribution to wine?
Catena: Provide the scientific method to understand problems and challenges. Use science to preserve our nature and our culture. Elevate Argentine wine for 200 more years. The Catena Institute of Wine has more than 30 publications, scientific reports on the terroir of the world, on Malbec. We publish to disseminate concrete results and share them. Because in the world of wine there is a lot of blah blah blah. One of the most interesting projects I carried out was the preservation of our biodiverse Malbec selections, which only exist in Argentina, because their genetic diversity was lost in France.
News: To what extent is the excellence of a wine conditioned by the reality of a country?
Catena: The wine depends on the place, the terroir. A California, a Napa Valley or a Bordeaux are unique, they are a special combination of soil and climate. Mendoza is a wine paradise because we have the altitude that gives us freshness and provides good natural acidity. We have the solar intensity that promotes tannins. And poor soils for good wine, because one wants low production and concentration. We have all this and a viticultural tradition that began in the 16th century with the Spanish and continued with the Italians in the 19th and 20th centuries. Of course, economic reality counts. We are going through a difficult situation. Let’s hope that with this new government the wine industry improves. An Argentina open to the world is essential to grow. I am concerned about the poverty of the country and that wine is for many a luxury product. I wish it were for all Argentines, drunk in moderation and with meals. It is our national drink.
