Bodega Catena Zapata

Bodega Catena Zapata is the Argentinian producer that put Argentina on the fine-wine map. It was founded in 1902 by Nicola Catena, an Italian immigrant who planted one of Mendoza's first Malbec vineyards at a time when the grape was still mostly used as a Bordeaux blender. The estate passed to his son Domingo, and in 1963 to Nicolás Catena Zapata, an economist (doctorate from Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, master's from Columbia) whose early-1980s visiting scholarship at UC Berkeley - with weekends in Napa - rearranged his thinking. He came back to Mendoza believing Argentina could make wines that could stand beside Europe's best - and then set about proving it.

Nicolás's decisive move was high-altitude viticulture. In the early 1990s he developed vineyards in Gualtallary, in the Uco Valley, at around 1,450 to 1,500 metres - altitudes the Argentinian industry had long considered too cold and too extreme for still wine. In 1992 he planted the now-iconic Adrianna Vineyard, named after his youngest daughter, which has since become something like the Grand Cru of South America. He paired the altitude with rigorous massale and clonal selection of Malbec (preserved at the Viejito de Rivadavia parcel) and introduced European winemaking techniques. Malbec was no longer a bulk grape after Nicolás finished with it.

Today the estate is led by his daughter Dr Laura Catena - a physician who also founded the Catena Institute of Wine in 1995 - alongside longtime winemaker Alejandro Vigil. Nicolás remains patriarch. Key vineyards include Adrianna, Nicasia (La Consulta), Angélica (Maipú), and La Pirámide (Agrelo). Malbec is the backbone, with serious Cabernet Sauvignon, Bonarda, and Chardonnay alongside.

The hierarchy ascends through:

• Catena and Catena Alta - the accessible tiers
• Nicolás Catena Zapata - the Bordeaux-style icon. In early-2000s blind tastings in the US and Europe, the 1997 vintage consistently placed alongside or ahead of Bordeaux First Growths
• Adrianna Vineyard single-parcel series - White Bones, White Stones, Fortuna Terrae, Mundus Bacillus Terrae, River - each named for the specific soil or feature that distinguishes it
• Nicasia Vineyard series

Since 1999, Caro has been a joint venture with Domaines Barons de Rothschild (Lafite), producing Caro, Amancaya, and Aruma. The Mayan-inspired pyramid-shaped winery at La Pirámide is now an architectural landmark in Mendoza. Malbec World Day (April 17), promoted globally by the Catena family, is the reason a grape once synonymous with cheap Argentinian reds is now a marquee name.