The pivot
The turn came in the early 1990s, and it was driven by one man and one trip. Nicolás Catena Zapata — Nicola Catena's grandson, a Berkeley-educated economist as well as a winemaker — had spent time in California's Napa Valley in the 1980s and seen what was possible: serious, premium, terroir-driven New World wine on the world stage. He came home determined to do the same in Mendoza.
He began a project to identify the best Malbec selections, the best vineyards, the best sites. He famously planted vineyards higher and higher up the Andes — in 1992, his Adrianna Vineyard in Gualtallary went in at around 1,500 meters, far higher than anyone thought sensible. The wines that came out of those high, cold, stony vineyards were unlike anything Argentina had made before: deep, inky, perfumed, beautifully balanced — Malbecs that could stand with the world's best reds.
This was the moment Argentine wine pivoted from bulk to fine. It was, as Catena himself called it, a “Malbec Revolution.” Foreign investment poured in. Bordeaux consultants like Michel Rolland flew down to advise; American winemakers like Paul Hobbs came south. Stainless steel tanks and French oak arrived. By the late 1990s and early 2000s, the international wine world discovered what Argentina had quietly been doing — and the “Malbec Boom” began. For his role in this transformation, Nicolás Catena Zapata received Decanter's Man of the Year award in 2009 and the Wine Spectator Distinguished Service Award in 2012 — recognitions reserved for figures who fundamentally change wine.
