Iconic Concierge Winter 2022/23

CATENA ZAPATA
Transforming Argentina’s Wine Industry Since 1902
The story of Argentine wine is also the story of the Catena
Zapata family. Nicola Catena sailed from Italy to Argentina
in 1898, leaving behind his famine-stricken European
homeland for a land of opportunity. In the clear air and
rolling hills of Mendoza, he firmly believed he had found the
promised land and so in 1902, Nicola planted his first Malbec
- a blending grape from Bordeaux, setting the foundation
for what would become the most iconic and historic family
winery in South America.
Domingo, Nicola’s eldest son, inherited his father’s dream
and took the family winery to the next level, building the Catena
business to become one of the largest vineyard holders in
Mendoza. Like his father before him, Domingo Catena fiercely
believed that Argentine Malbec could make a wine as worthy
as any first-growth Bordeaux.
In the 1960s, however, the Argentine economy imploded
and inflation rates soared. It got so bad one year that Domingo
realized it would cost him more to harvest than to leave the
fruit on the vines. His 22- year-old son Nicolás Catena Zapata, a
recent PhD graduate in economics, advised him not to harvest
but Domingo could not follow his son’s advice with a clear
conscience. Years of turmoil followed and when it became
Nicolás’s turn to take the reins of the family winery, he did so with
a challenging backdrop of political and economic instability. He
concentrated on expanding distribution throughout the country
and followed an opportunity in the early 1980s to become a
visiting scholar of economics at the world-renowned campus at
Berkeley at the University of California.
Until that time, only the Californians had challenged France
on the wine front, defying Europe by creating a Cabernet
Sauvignon and a Chardonnay that could rival the best French
wines. A serendipitous inspiration to Nicolás and his wife, Elena,
who spent weekends visiting the wineries with their youngest
daughter Adrianna in a backpack. And when Nicolás Catena
Zapata finally returned to Mendoza, it was with a vision. The
vision for the “Catena Dream”!
At that time Argentina was perceived as a bulk wine producer.
Going completely against the grain, Nicolás sold his table-wineproducing
company, keeping only Bodegas Esmeralda, the finewine
branch of the family’s winery. Told by fellow winemakers
that he was “completamente loco” (completely crazy), Nicolás
became the first to export fine wine from Argentina, laying
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