Dr Adrianna Catena – of Catena Zapata and El Enemigo – is not only a winemaker, however a working towards historian. We sat down along with her to speak about how wine formed South America’s social panorama and the way water conservation and sustainable irrigation practices will safe its future.
Essentially the most well-known winery in Argentina is known as after Dr Adrianna Catena, who’s the youngest daughter of pioneering vigneron Nicolás Catena Zapata. In addition to her viticultural endeavors at Catena Zapata and her partnership with Alejandro Vigil as co-founder of the cult Argentine vineyard El Enemigo, she is a working towards historian. Her space of curiosity is the fifteenth and sixteenth century Americas – a time when wine (and the vine) had been first launched to the continent following the Spanish conquest. The pivotal function of wine in Catholic ritual, and the hazards related to consuming contemporary water, she believes, would form the event of wine manufacturing within the Americas. For Catena, the intimate relationship between wine and water continues to play a central function in shaping Mendoza’s social panorama.
The concrete eggs outdoors the El Enemigo vineyard
The historical past of water and wine in South America is a captivating matter for Catena. Though her PhD thesis centered on the commerce in indigo dye from the Americas to Europe, her attachment to wine – in addition to the very actual issues of water shortage in Mendoza – are topics essential to her as a historian and as a vigneron.
By way of the Catena Institute of Wine (CIW), the Catena Zapata vineyard has pioneered analysis in viticulture throughout a broad rand of subjects. It contains ground-breaking work on terroir, ageability, and soil biodiversity, in addition to in depth research on excessive elevation vinegrowing in a context of adjusting weather conditions – however a few of their most urgent work facilities round water preservation.
“Water preservation is one in all our most essential areas of analysis in the present day,” says Catena. “Natural farming is simpler within the very dry local weather of Mendoza, than in Bordeaux, the place larger rainfall and relative humidity imply vineyards shall be extra prone to fungal ailments – for us, relating to a sustainable future and regenerative farming, water preservation is vital.” Catena Zapata’s head viticulturalist Luis Reginato is nicknamed “the water man” at Catena – such is his obsession. “He’s all the time trialing new, experimental methods to save lots of water.” However she notes, the area has an extended profitable historical past of water administration for Reginato to faucet into. “The irrigation techniques developed by the native Huarpe individuals earlier than the arrival of Europeans had been key to profitable agriculture within the area, and these techniques are nonetheless in use in the present day,” says Catena. For hundreds of years, irrigation channels and aqueducts have diverted water from the Andes mountains to terrace decrease Andes farmlands, bringing contemporary consuming water to the cities. The Incas, Catena says, whose energy prolonged briefly to this area, had been fairly distinctive amongst early trendy empires within the high quality of their diet and a notable absence of famine – made potential by terraced agriculture on the Andean slopes and sophisticated irrigation techniques.
The aqueducts in Mendoza, first initiated by the Huarpes. Images credit score: Catena Zapata
Whereas superior water networks had been important to pre-Hispanic and later colonial agriculture, Europeans handled consuming water with warning. “Up till the final century, it was a typical perception that water, particularly in unique or tropical areas, could possibly be dangerous to your well being,” says Catena. “Contaminated water might (and may nonetheless) kill you and was thought-about extraordinarily harmful.” Wine in lots of components of Europe (and the Americas, following the Spanish conquest) together with ales and beer, was typically thought-about a safer choice. The place they felt there was no entry to scrub water, wine grew to become a vital a part of the eating regimen.
Wine was a key European import within the early days of the Spanish conquest, notes Catena. And for the Spaniards, it was not with out its well being advantages. “Throughout this era, medication was humoral, individuals believed every thing you ingested would have an effect on your temper, well being, and disposition,” she explains. “In a single declare from the time, ‘vino‘ (wine) got here from the phrase ’vena‘ (vein) – it was thought-about nourishing, and intently resembles blood and was related to this. Some believed it fortified the veins.”
However, as Catena explains, wine was greater than a well being profit for the conquistador. “Wine was additionally a vital image of Christianity and Christianity was a shifting power within the Spanish conquest.” The conquest of Mexico would roughly coincide with the beginning of Luther’s Reformation. The Spanish, for his or her half, needed to safe a triumph for Catholicism, and within the inhabitants of the brand new world, noticed thousands and thousands of souls to fill their ranks in opposition to the Protestants. “It was the conquistador’s mission,” she says. “Behind the conquest was a giant effort to transform the native inhabitants.” Catena explains how wine – as with wheat – was a extremely symbolic meals for Christianity, representing the blood of Christ.
Dr Adrianna Catena – historian and vigneron
“In case you are making an attempt to transform a complete native inhabitants to Catholicism, rituals shall be basic,” she says. Wine had all the time held a central function in spiritual ritual and was key to the spiritual aspect of the Conquest. Conquistadors, she explains, needed to construct a church on their land after being awarded territory by the Crown for his or her service – they usually had been additionally made chargeable for changing the indigenous inhabitants. “On this quest, as one historian put it, to advance the spiritual and territorial conquest – the 2 primary meals the Spanish wanted had been wheat and wine.”
Initially, all wine was imported from Europe, however vines had been swiftly launched and acclimated. By the 1570s vineyards had been planted throughout South America, albeit underneath strict rules. Clergymen, for instance, had been allowed to plant vineyards – however there was plenty of laws over who might and couldn’t develop grapes. By the 1570s vineyards had been planted all around the Americas.
For well being, spiritual and cultural causes, everybody drank wine in sixteenth and seventeenth century South America – it was a part of the eating regimen, explains Catena. However because the affect of humoral medication waned following the Enlightenment – and higher sanitation practices had been found – the perceived symbolic advantages of wine declined.
Because the inhabitants grew exponentially within the nineteenth century, so did wine manufacturing in Argentina. Italian and Spanish immigrants arrived on the continent, forsaking their famine-stricken homelands. “Wine consumption reached extraordinary ranges,” says Catena, “significantly with the event of the railways.” This new expertise enabled the speedy, environment friendly transportation of wine from producing areas to the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires.
The Andes mountains, the primary water supply for Mendoza. Images credit score Sarah Remington
Nicola Catena was one such immigrant, who arrived in Mendoza in 1898 on the age of 17, planting his first winery in 1902. A local of Le Marche, from a household of vinegrowers, it was not so stunning that Catena went into wine manufacturing. Whereas Mendoza is very similar to a desert with little or no rainfall (between 200 and 400 mm per 12 months), the irrigation channels developed by the indigenous Huarpe individuals (a nation periodically underneath Inca rule), had been used to divert snow soften from the Andes, enabling farmers to flood farmland when required, making viticulture potential. By the point Nicola’s son Domingo Catena took over, the household had change into famend winemakers in Mendoza.
In additional trendy instances, wine and water’s relationship has modified significantly. Wine in lots of cases has change into a luxurious and now not a vital a part of the eating regimen – though Catena says that culturally wine stays a typical sight at each meal in Argentina. Below the guardianship of Nicolás Catena and now his daughter Laura, Catena Zapata has change into amongst a rising variety of quality-led producers in Mendoza whose wines compete with the best on this planet. Their prime wines – Mundus Bacillus Terrae and Nicolás Catena – led the cost in placing Mendoza on the wonderful wine map.
Water too is now not seen with as a lot warning, however neither is it taken as a right. It barely rains in any respect in Mendoza – with the area successfully a high-altitude desert. With out snowmelt from the mountains, agriculture right here can be inconceivable, however glacial reserves in Argentina are reducing. With local weather change, water in these components will now not be merely accessible on the flip of a faucet. “The preservation of water has change into an essential concern of winemaking in Mendoza. This is without doubt one of the most pressing questions for our area in the present day,” says Catena.
Experiments in water preservation. Images credit score: Catena Zapata
Ongoing analysis at Catena contains many water-saving experiments. “Greater than a decade in the past we transitioned all our vineyards from the normal, however wasteful system of flood irrigation, to drip irrigation. Since then, we’ve created reservoirs to seize rainwater, and arrange water stations to measure and limit irrigation to the naked minimal in our household vineyards.” For Catena, “these small adjustments can have a big and lasting impression.”
The purpose at Catena is to handle a regenerative and sustainable agricultural cycle. Catena notes how the Incas had been in a position to remodel their atmosphere with out inflicting irreparable harm to it. “We are able to inhabit this earth with out being parasitical,” she says. As members of a bigger viticultural group, Catena hopes to share the teachings it has discovered from its analysis, to allow this area that has been formed by water and wine to proceed making top quality wine centuries from now. Optimistically she says, “We consider we’re at a tipping level, and the mindset is gathering momentum right here greater than ever earlier than.”
Since wine was launched to the continent within the sixteenth century, there have been enormous cultural adjustments. However the irrigation techniques that allowed these first vines to develop stay in use, feeding the numerous vineyards, typically centuries outdated. With out water, there shall be no wine. With Argentinian wine so in style around the globe in the present day, lots rides on Catena Zapata’s analysis. The hope is that they will lead the cost, shaping a vivid future for this area.
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