Catena

The recent announcement of Nicolas Catena as Decanter's Man of the Year is the latest in a long line of richly deserved accolades. It places him alongside the likes of Anthony Barton, Christian Moueix, Robert Mondavi and Len Evans, and it is absolutely correct that he is the first South American to join this elite list of names.

Catena is the third generation of his family to have grown Malbec in Mendoza, after his grandfather planted the first vines in 1902. However, despite over a century of winemaking history, the greatest strides have only been made under Nicolas' stewardship over the last fifteen years. The success lies in Nicolas' attention to detail. In Jancis Robinson's words, he is "a man driven by the spirit of scientific discovery."

Catena's greatest legacy will be the expansion and understanding of high-altitude viticulture. Today, plantings at 1000m or more above sea level are relatively commonplace in Argentina but this is solely down to the work of Nicolas Catena.

He and his team have unlocked many of the secrets of high-altitude winemaking, how the thin, intense sunlight produces ultra-ripe Malbec grape skins that are full of the polyphenols that give the wine colour and fruit flavour but with soft, supple tannins.

Catena's research suggests that it has taken until very recently to identify and plant the best terroirs in Mendoza and that many of the vineyards that excite him most are as young as three years old. If Nicolas is right then in ten or fifteen years time, when they have matured, we will see another jump in the standard of Argentina's best wines and you can be confident of whose name will be on the label.

Lafite Catena

It may be a side project for both Bordeaux's Chateau Lafite and Argentina's best winemaker Nicolas Catena, but Caro is anything but an afterthought when it comes to winemaking. A blend of Cabernet and Malbec (drawing on the relative expertise of both partners) Caro source their fruit from Catena's pristine high-altitude vineyards and create a genuinely iconic wine that both these illustrious names are justifiably proud of.