Amanda Barnes

Category: Interviews

Interviews with different personalities

  • Interview with Laura Catena

    Laura Catena is an emergency room doctor in San Francisco. She is also a fourth-generation winemaker from a family credited with revolutionizing Argentinian wine – Bodega Catena Zapata’s flagship label, Nicolás Catena Zapata, was the first wine from Argentina to score a Robert Parker 98+.

    How did you first fall in love with wine?

    When my father was starting this whole revolution with Argentine wine in the ’80s and I was going to school in the United States [Harvard and Stanford]. My father used to visit me and one of our traditions was to go to really nice restaurants. His objective was to make Argentine wines that could stand with the rest of the world, so we had to try the best wines on the list. I became a wine snob rather quickly. That’s really how I started: sitting and having these incredible conversations with my father over wine.

    Is great wine made in the vineyard or the winery?

    Definitely in the vineyard. There’s no way you can make a great wine without a great vineyard. Impossible. However, you can ruin a great vineyard by making a bad wine. I think both are important, but without the great vineyard, there isn’t a great wine.

    (more…)

  • A look through the drinking glass with Riedel…

    ImageWritten for The Vines of Mendoza

    We all know that the temperature a wine is served at can have a huge impact on how it tastes, and also that some wines need longer time to ‘breathe’ than others, but I guess I have never really thought too much about the glass I drink it through.

    I prefer a big glass but I’ve always thought that was more to do with wanting a bit more quantity rather than improving the quality of a wine, and I don’t smirk too much drinking from plastic cups. But that has all changed after a Masterclass with Maximilian Riedel, eleventh generation glass maker and President of Riedel (aka ‘The Wine Glass Company’).

    I was deeply intrigued and perhaps a little bit skeptical going into a tasting with three wines and six different wine glasses last week at the London Wine Fair.

    (more…)

  • 24 Hours in the Life of a Winemaker

    24 Hours in the Life of a Winemaker

    winemaker_csmallAlthough Mendoza celebrates with fiestas and siestas during harvest, winemakers are at their busiest time of the year. Amanda Barnes writes 24 hours in the life of winemaker Brennan Firth. **Article from Wine Republic(www.wine-republic.com)

    April 25th: 12am

    It’s midnight. The winery is much cooler, but I’m still sweating like a pig. I am running around like a bit of a wild man, monitoring tanks, tasting juice, taking temperatures and breaking down the caps. I have seven full tanks at the moment and the caps (grapes risen to the top) need breaking every five to seven hours. At this early point in fermentation the must is more like a thick soup – I lift the plunger high over my head and force it down into the stiff mound of blackish purple berries. It’s like kneading dough. I inhale the heady aromas: bananas, tropical fruit and the reminiscence of nail polish remover.

    Jake (my intern) is washing down all the tools, pumps, equipment and the floor. I laugh as his head nods and eyes roll and he drops off into momentary sleep, only to be rudely awakened by spraying his own feet with the cold water.

    1.45am
    Tanks are ready, the place is clean and prepped for the morning and Jake is most definitely half asleep. We haul our exhausted sweaty bodies into the car. I don’t like to leave my grapes unattended for even a moment but I’m running on less than three hours sleep and have to pick the Malbec in the morning. I put on some loud music to keep us awake and we hit the road.

    2am
    Home. Cold beer, fag and a rather stale ham and cheese sandwich from yesterday. I stink, but I forget about showering and roll into bed.

    4.30am
    Alarm clock rings. Excited as a child on Christmas morning, I get up. My body doesn’t want to but my mind is reeling, desperate to get harvesting. Being part of the pick is really important to me. I’ve been tasting the grapes every day for the last month or two, and I know today is the day I want my Malbec harvested. You basically have to chew the hell out the grape to know when it’s ready – when the seed is no longer bitter and the grape not yet a raisin. Yesterday the grapes were prime, so today is the moment. This is it.I boil the kettle and bang on Jake’s door, I hear a grumble from inside, I bang again, I can hear his leg thud to the ground – mission accomplished.
    We head out to the car. Checklist: Jake, thermos and mate [highly caffeinated tea] and very loud rock music to keep us awake.

    (more…)