LAURA CATENA, A GREAT ASSET FOR THE ARGENTINIAN WINE INDUSTRY
Claude Gilois, creator of Vins du Monde in 1995 and importer of Catena wines in to France
It was during her visit to Paris on Monday 26th June for a dispassionate comparative tasting of French wines and wines from the Catena Estate, that we found her smiling, wearing her Argentinian gaucho beret[1], her media signature. All participants in the tasting were given Laura Catena’s latest book, “Malbec, Mon Amour”, an informative and entertaining book in French whose title is inspired by Alain Resnais’ film, “Hiroshima, Mon Amour”.
Laura Catena is the CEO of the eponymous family business and the fourth generation of Catena at the helm of the estate. If it takes leaders to ensure success, then Laura has all the qualities. First her education in the two best universities in the world: Harvard where she studied biology and obtained her degree with one of the highest grades (Magna cum laude). She then studied medicine at Stanford University[2] and became an emergency doctor in Los Angeles and then San Francisco – “It’s my way of saving the world, wine doesn’t have that power”.
Catena is already the emblematic domain in Argentina under the direction of her father, Nicolas, a doctor of economics, who went into exile with his family in the United States during the Argentine dictatorship (1976-1983) before returning to the country to create Argentina’s first high-altitude vineyards in the Uco Valley.
It was a wine event in 1995 that would change the situation and bring Laura closer to the family business. The estate was invited to the “Wine Experience”, the big annual “smorgasbord” where all the elite American viticulture present their wines even those who have nothing to sell are present. It’s a fiasco for Catena, no one knew the domain, worse still, most people didn’t even know that wine was made in Argentina. Laura then decided that she was going to help her father. She is outgoing and engaging while her father is reserved and sometimes shy. Together they made a formidable team because they enjoy working as a team. She entered the estate on tiptoe and took care of the American market for three years before taking over the management of export markets for eight years and became CEO of Catena in 2009 while continuing her job as an emergency doctor in San Francisco as well as raising her three children.
In 2010, she released her first book “Vino Argentino”, a book on oenotourism in Argentina. Her vision of wine and her working methods are not unlike those of Angelo Gaja in Italy or Eben Sadie in South Africa. All domains have an important family dimension and several family members contribute to the success of the company, all lead by example and set the bar very high. You have to fit into the mould to find your place. All have a long-term vision and all attach great importance to research and innovation. While these two parameters are empirical with Gaja and Sadie, they take on a more scientific dimension at Catena. In 1995, Laura created the « Catena Wine Institute » which works in collaboration with the University of California Davis and the « Universidad Nacional de Cuyo ». The Catena Institute manages university research and development programs. Through these academic partnerships, the Institute seeks to advance and promote knowledge for the wine community as a whole. Because the Institute has its PhD students who publish in peer-reviewed journals, all players in the wine industry can benefit from scientific progress. Her intelligence is matched only by her equally formidable energy and Laura continued to practice medicine until 2018. In addition to her responsibilities within Catena which employs 100 people, she is the owner of the estate Luca, which markets wines from old vines. In 2020 she released her second book “Gold in the Vineyard” which presents 12 of the most emblematic vineyards in the world including the vineyard of Adriana de Catena. As if that weren’t enough to fill her schedule, she is a board member of the University of California, « Davis, School of Viticulture and Oenology », and co-director of the Caro estate, a joint venture between Catena and the Baron Philippe de Rothschild estates. In 2023, Dr Laura Catena was appointed new Honorary President of the “Wine and Spirit Education Trust” (WSET), the undisputed leader in education in the field of wine and spirits in the world.
Michel Platini, arguably the greatest French football player once said that to win a World Cup, you need at least one great player in the team. Argentina had Lionel Messi, and they won the cup in 2022. France too had a great player, Kylian Mbappé and they might as well have won it too.
The same goes for putting a country at the top of the wine world, one needs an undisputed and charismatic leader. If we add that she is quadrilingual (Spanish, English, French, Italian) and endowed with a good dose of humility and empathy, then Argentina has probably found its figurehead. Her name is Laura Catena.
[1] The Argentinian gaucho beret is actually the Basque beret and Argentina has one of the largest Basque diasporas in the world.
[2] The universities of Harvard and Stanford are among the highest ranked in all university rankings in the world.