Bodega Catena Zapata 2009 Nicolas Catena Zapata Red

Special price $99 |  regular $110

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The "first family of Argentine wine," the Catena family has been making wine in Mendoza since 1902, but it was Nicolás Catena, the third generation, who changed Argentina's place in the wine world entirely. In the 1990s he became convinced that Mendoza's high-altitude vineyards, planted well above where most people thought fine wine could be grown, held the key to something special. In 1994 he became the first Argentine producer to export a world-class Malbec under his own name, and in 1997 he released the inaugural vintage of his flagship wine, a Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec blend that beat out prestigious Bordeaux and Napa bottlings in a series of blind tastings. That wine put Argentina on the map the way the Judgment of Paris did for California two decades earlier, and it's been the family's benchmark ever since. Today Nicolás works alongside his daughter, Dr. Laura Catena, and longtime winemaker Alejandro Vigil, who has led the cellar since 2002.

The 2009 comes from two of the family's most important high-altitude sites, the Adrianna Vineyard in Gualtallary at nearly 4,800 feet, planted specifically to find the coolest possible spot in Mendoza, and the Domingo Vineyard nearby. It's a 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Malbec blend assembled from a staggering 210 separate micro-vinifications of individual vineyard rows, harvested at different times based on each lot's soil, then aged 24 months in 80% new French oak. That level of obsessive, parcel-by-parcel winemaking is rare anywhere in the world, let alone South America.

95 Points from Robert Parker

94 Points from James Suckling

93 Points from Wine Spectator