Laura Catena is hardly your average emergency room doc. The Argentine native—who came to the U.S. with her professor dad to attend high school and wound up staying to attend Harvard for undergrad and then Stanford for medical school—”moonlights” from her job as an ER physician at UCSF by making wine, and on another continent at that.
That’s right, the married mother of three (yes, she has a nanny) successfully holds down two glamorous jobs and apparently has energy to burn, as I witnessed when I interviewed her in San Fran’s homey Cole Valley several weeks ago. But besides her fascinating resume and seemingly boundless energy, I was most intrigued by Catena’s commitment to making small batches of totally world-class wine from Mendoza’s top low-yield, high-elevation vineyards. And though you may have heard more about her family’s other winery, Bodega Catena Zapata (considered by many the preeminent winery in all of Argentina), I predict her own label, Luca, has a bright future all its own.
Read on for an exclusive interview with Laura, including her ruminations on pursuing multiple careers, living on two continents, and generally being fabulous. (Okay, that last part is totally my conjecture, but I have to say she’s impressive.) Enjoy!
CC: Describe Malbec for me in your own words.
LC: Malbec has everything that one would want in a red wine: intense black fruit aromatics, a dense mid-palate, and a finish that is incredibly powerful yet smooth at the same time.
CC: I know you’re passionate about Argentine wine country. What is so special about it?
LC: It is not only spectacular aesthetically, with vineyards perched in the foothills of the Andes Mountains, but the climatic conditions are ideal for high quality production of concentrated and smooth wines. The dry, cool mountain climate, the poor soils, and the extremely sunny days allows for low yields, slow ripening, and long hang times. The result: incredibly ripe fruit that has no green flavors and a richness that comes from staying on the vine for a long time.
CC: Is there a diversity of terroir in Mendoza? I really enjoyed your 2006 Luca Syrah but wasn’t aware much Syrah was grown there (let alone could be this good).
LC: Yes, at each altitude and latitude there is a completely different microclimate. Malbec from Lujan de Cuyo is incredibly different from Malbec grown in La Consulta. There is not a lot of Syrah planted in Mendoza, because most people are planting Malbec. That is why the Laborde Vineyard, an old vineyard in La Consulta planted with a very special selection of plants that were originally brought from the Rhone Valley is all the more unique.
CC: You’ve created your own brand, Luca, named for your eldest son, and are also part of your family’s wildly successful Catena Zapata. Tell me about your philosophy on legacy building.
LC: We are all romantics in my family, and I still like to think that I am in some way living the dream of my Italian great grandfather Nicola Catena, who came to Argentina in 1898 with the goal of owning his own vineyard and raising a family in the New World. I named my third child and only daughter Nicola in his honor. I feel really privileged to have been born into a wine family ... There is so much art, passion, and fantasy involved in making wine. But I am also aware that only wines of great quality are commercially viable. So if there is one thing that I would like to teach my children some day, it’s that they should always strive to make the best wines in the world.
CC: Why are so many wineries and growers family-run operations? Why do you think the connection between wine and family is so strong?
LC: I think I answered this question already, but maybe it has to do with the life of the farmer and with how difficult it is to make it as a winery. Only the very passionate and hard working survive and when children see their father or mother give their life and soul to making wine, they are inspired to continue the family tradition.
