The Bodega Catena Zapata Winery has been in the Catena family for 4 generations, surviving the Falkland War and a military dictatorship.
It is now run by the perpetually optimistic, Stanford-educated physician Laura Catena. While she was starting her career as a doctor, Laura helped her father spread word about their wine at the New York Wine Experience. Their wine was not given much respect since Argentina was not known for making good wines.
The New York Wine Experience motivated her and her father to change the world's perception of Argentinian wine. The Catena family is credited with proving great wine can be made in Argentina.
In the process of making their wines known, they founded the Catena Institute of Wine. Dr. Laura Catena leads the institute which runs in partnership with University of California - Davis and Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Ph.D. level research is being done on a continually basis at the Adrianna Vineyard making it one of the most (if not the most) studied vineyards in the world. Not only are the Catena wines unique, they can back it up with data! Here is an excerpt:
"Applying advanced statistical techniques (chemometrics), we found out that Malbec takes on a number of different flavor profiles depending on its origin. In general, the Mendocinian wines offered more complexity and ripe red fruit flavors compared to the Californian samples."
We recommend trying with this recipe for skirt steak with Chimichurri sauce.