Today we've got a very illustrious Argentinian wine with us!

It's Catena Zapata's Catena Malbec.

Catena Zapata is one of the most impressive producers coming out of Argentina, and is largely credited for helping to elevate the entire country's winemaking and bring Argentina to greater heights within the wine community.

For many decades, Argentina as is the case with most South American producers, have largely languished in the eyes of the wine community as producing bulk wines that were cheap and unremarkable.

The 1976 Judgement of Paris spurred massive interest in the New World, from both producers and consumers alike. 

Yet, when California's wine scene started taking off in the 1980's, in large part thanks to the landmark Judgement of Paris held in Paris in 1976. It was a small but highly publicised blind taste test competition pitting California's wines against France's iconic chateaux, with California pulling ahead in a surprise first place finish in both the reds and white category, and was instrumental in the wine community reassessing New World wines. 

And who else would have happened to be in California at the time, other than Nicolas Catena Zapata, who was a visiting Economics scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, and whose first life was in being the third-generation head of his family's vineyards back in Mendoza, Argentina.

His grandfather was an Italian immigrant who had moved over to Argentina and had begun established the Catena vineyards, which was in turn passed to his son (Nicolas' father), and then eventually to Nicolas himself.

Laura Catena and her father, Nicolas Catena.

Nicolas was so excited by the revolution he saw happening in California, that he returned to Argentina and decided that he had wanted to achieve the same phenomenon in his home country. It took many decades and various breakthroughs, but thankfully he was aided by his daughter, Dr Laura Catena.

Laura is today the fourth-generation Catena to run the family's vineyards (you'll see her signature on the right corner of the label along with her father's on the left corner), and has been instrumental in helping to bring Catena to such heights - and we mean that figuratively and literally!

Together they would figure that they needed to produce fruit in colder climates resembling that of Burgundy and Champagne in France, which was a highly risky move that they were strongly warned against as most had believed it would destroy the vines. This meant that they would have to export their entire vineyard up 5,000 feet of elevation to the Mendoza mountains. Yet they would succeed to great effect with their pioneering Adrianna Vineyard. From there they would bring the concept of terroir to their vineyards and subdivide their plot according to composition and therefore plan harvests according to the flavours achieved by differing terroir, for their role in the final blend.

Catena's iconic La Pyramide vineyard.

Together they've seen the family's wines go from bulk wines to some of the most sought after from Argentina! It's truly a story that could just as well be a Netflix movie.

On the label you'll also see a pen on paper illustration of the family's iconic Mayan-inspired La Pyramide Vineyard against the Mendoza mountains.

On that note, it's also worth pointing out that the Malbec we're tasting today from Catena is incredibly special because while Malbec is generally considered to be a relatively newly popular varietal typically associated with South America, it is actually thousands of years old and was originally from France. In fact, back in the mid 1800's when Bordeaux was in the midst of being classified in the watershed 1855 Bordeaux Classification, more than 20% of the vineyards in First Growth plots were planted with Malbec. It was this very success that led to Malbec vines being exported from Bordeaux to Argentina. And yet today there is little Malbec in Bordeaux. This was the result of a Phylloxera wave that decimated Malbec vines in France, which were thus replaced with Merlot.

What makes Catena special. (Image Source: Greg Sherwood MW)

Nevertheless the pre-Phylloxera Malbec's brought over to Argentina from Bordeaux remained unaffected and have thus thrived in the South American climate. Thus while the classic Bordeaux blend is Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot heavy, the South American blend keeps the Cabernet Sauvignon but has Malbec in place of the Merlot.

And so because Catena is today a fourth-generation vineyard established in 1902, it's got a significant amount of pre-Phylloxera Malbec that is almost a blast from the past when you think about its Bordeaux ancestry. Additionally, Catena's work in higher altitude vineyards has pretty much made this the standard when it comes to Argentinian winemaking.

With all that said, let's give it a go! 

Catena Malbec, Catena Zapata 2021 - Review

Tasting Notes

Colour: Garnet

Aroma: Incredibly aromatic with notes of rose and raspberry jam, it's floral and vibrant, with a good richness and depth. The floral rose scents are very prominent, backed up by some light blackberries, as well as some soft earthiness of browned leaves.

Taste: Good richness, it leans abit sweeter here, with more on fresh raspberries, raspberry jam, blackcurrant cordial. It's medium bodied, with moderate depth. More of those rose flavours although softer here. It retains that vibrance with a moderate but lovely richness. It's body has a good fullness but isn't dense.

Finish: More red notes of raspberry, red licorice, some residual sweetness. Some fine and soft tannins show up, with a soft and plush finish.

My Thoughts

Very beautiful and elegant Malbec from Catena. This is absolutely lovely and stands out for being saturated with these red flavours of roses, raspberries and red licorice, going beyond the blackcurrants and blackberries. It's even got a soft earthiness on the nose. I really love the vibrance as well - in both florals and fruit! - and it comes in a moderate but nicely rich and medium to full body. It's fragrant and aromatic, juicy and fresh with a nice complexity to it. The flavours are forward and well-saturated, with not a lot of structure but fine and soft tannins that give it a plushness even into the finish. Very, very lovely expression from Catena!