{"id":1600128,"date":"2020-07-15T01:00:46","date_gmt":"2020-07-15T05:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/divine.ca\/?p=1600128"},"modified":"2020-07-15T01:00:46","modified_gmt":"2020-07-15T05:00:46","slug":"womeninspiringwomen-laura-catena-vintner-physician-author-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/divine.ca\/en\/womeninspiringwomen-laura-catena-vintner-physician-author-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"#WomenInspiringWomen: Laura Catena, Vintner, Physician, Author (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

DIVINE X Wines of Argentina<\/h3>\n

In part one<\/a> of our interview with Laura Catena, we learned what it was like for her to follow in her father\u2019s footsteps, the importance of wine to Argentinians and the science behind winemaking.\u00a0 In Part 2, we will learn how being an emergency doctor prepared Catena for winemaking.\u00a0 We will find out who inspires her, the challenges that she faced and what being a woman in the wine industry is like.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Adrianna Malbec<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How difficult was it to transition into your family\u2019s business?<\/h3>\n

It was both the hardest and easiest thing.\u00a0 The easiest thing is that I was able to work part time initially [at the winery]<\/a> so that I could try something new.\u00a0 How many people thinking of a career change can walk into a job like the one I walked into?\u00a0 A role where I could use my science background at the [Catena] Institute, work with amazing people that were already trained and learn how to make the best quality wines in Argentina.\u00a0 How often in life are you making a career change or just explore one and walk into a job like this one.\u00a0 For me, I need to work in something where I am going to be helping people.\u00a0 I\u2019m not a materialistic person.\u00a0 I want to help people grow.\u00a0 A lot of doctors want to make wine.<\/p>\n

I fell in love with wine first, which is a shared experience that I have with other people who have gone into winemaking.\u00a0 It\u2019s usually not your first profession.\u00a0 The reason why there is so much passion behind wine and the wine business is because they fall deeply in love with it.<\/p>\n

Tell us about the proper way to taste and appreciate your wines.<\/h3>\n
\"Winemaking:
Wine Tasting<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

First of all, I think that you should be in a good mood.\u00a0 When people drink wine to de-stress, they aren\u2019t necessarily appreciating it.\u00a0 That\u2019s why I like wine with food or on its own, just for the purpose of enjoyment.\u00a0 I\u2019m a big proponent of wine in moderation.\u00a0 I follow all of the medical literature and men should not be drinking more than two glasses a day and women not more than one glass.\u00a0 That is when you get the cardiovascular benefits, fewer strokes, less dementia and better diabetes control.\u00a0 If you increase alcohol consumption, you will be prone to heart attacks, strokes, and dementia.\u00a0 That\u2019s why I like wine to be consumed the way it\u2019s consumed in the Mediterranean lifestyle, which is what we have in Argentina from the Spaniards and Italians that came to the country.\u00a0 You drink wine with meals and with family, enjoying it slowly.<\/p>\n

In terms of glassware, having fine glassware increases the aromatics and the experience.\u00a0 Personally, I\u2019m not a stickler about glasses.\u00a0 If you have a really good glass, you will be able to smell better.\u00a0 Smelling wine is like smelling flowers; it\u2019s a beautiful exercise to enjoy that hedonistic experience.\u00a0 If you have your wine in one of those old-fashioned water glasses, that\u2019s fine too.<\/p>\n

What challenges did you have to face initially being a female in the wine industry in Argentina?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Not as many in Argentina, believe it or not.\u00a0 My own father had two mentors, his father, who taught him the day to day in business and his mother.\u00a0 She was the headmaster at a local school and was his intellectual mentor.\u00a0 She was a fierce educator who would go to people\u2019s houses and get kids to come to school when they were being kept at home to work.\u00a0 He grew up in this intellectual, knowledge-based family.\u00a0 My father had this standard that women could do anything.\u00a0 In my family, there was my sister, my brother and I, and there was never a sense that my brother was supposed to achieve more \u2013 there were high expectations for all of us.\u00a0 I grew up in a household where my own mother worked.\u00a0 She runs a software company in Argentina.<\/p>\n

I have felt it more outside of Argentina.\u00a0 The world of wine is tough. Getting up there with the top wines of the world is a difficult road.\u00a0 I felt like there were so many men in that world and I had to prove myself.\u00a0 Initially, they would think that I was some Latin woman from a winery.\u00a0 Once I started talking, and proved myself, there wasn\u2019t an issue.\u00a0 The initial impression, though, was that they had to test me, whereas, if I had been a man, it may have been easier.\u00a0 You might think that this is kind of sad, but in the US, the minute that I said that I went to Harvard and Stanford, boom, I had the respect.\u00a0 I\u2019m not very perceptive about those things.\u00a0 Sometimes, I would think about it afterward, but for the most part, if there was an issue, I didn\u2019t notice it.\u00a0 That is not to say that other women haven\u2019t suffered with it.\u00a0 Women suffer daily.\u00a0 I think it has been harder for women.\u00a0 Times are changing, and now people want to hear from women; men want to hear from women.<\/p>\n

You are a doctor, vintner, author in addition to being a mother of three.\u00a0 How are you able to hold down so many different roles?<\/h3>\n
\"\"
Barrel Room<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s accepting the B+ model.\u00a0 I had this incredible realization when I had my second son and I was so stressed out because three kids are harder than two, and two are harder than one.\u00a0 My milk production went down.\u00a0 I decided that one day I wouldn\u2019t work and I would just think.\u00a0 I like having days where I just think.\u00a0 What am I paying attention to, what\u2019s important and what isn\u2019t?\u00a0 I came up with this realization that if I try to do everything perfectly or really well, I was basically going to do everything badly.<\/p>\n

There were some things that needed to be done at the highest level, like being a doctor.\u00a0 When I worked my hospital shifts, I would always go to bed really early.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t matter what emergency was going on at the winery.\u00a0 Patient care and people\u2019s lives are my focus and I don\u2019t answer e-mails from the winery when I\u2019m in the hospital.<\/p>\n

With children, I have very important advice which is feeling loved is very important.\u00a0 Being helped is not very important.\u00a0 Most kids would benefit from not being helped so much.\u00a0 Kids don\u2019t need you very much.\u00a0 They need you to put a helmet on and make sure that they don\u2019t do anything too risky, but a little risk is protective because kids who have been exposed to more uncertainty know how to deal with harder things.\u00a0 You don\u2019t have to control everything.<\/p>\n

Wine quality \u2013 no sacrifices.\u00a0 The wine has to be twice the value at half the price \u2013 that has to be A+ every time.\u00a0 If you aren\u2019t going to be able to achieve that, then don\u2019t release the wine.\u00a0 What I realized was a clean house, is not very important.\u00a0 Food on the table is important, but really good food?\u00a0 Not always. As long as you can have A+ food once in a while, order from a restaurant, you\u2019ll be fine.\u00a0 Divide the things that you do into what is really important and what is not and then forgive yourself.\u00a0 You have to love yourself to be able to love others.\u00a0 You have to be comfortable with who you are and what you can do well.<\/p>\n

The one thing that all of your roles have in common is a degree of uncertainty.\u00a0 As an ER doctor, your day is filled with unsure situations.\u00a0 Winemaking is dependent on everything from weather to pests.\u00a0 Authors can be rejected by publishers.\u00a0 What draws you to these uncertain professions?<\/h3>\n

My real goal in the end is to change lives and to help people.\u00a0 I think that a lot of these things are hard.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have fear of difficult things.\u00a0 I do get stressed out, but I think I\u2019ve adapted. What I\u2019m trying to do happens to be in these fields with high uncertainty.\u00a0 Being an emergency doctor helped in being a wine maker because I had a mental way of dealing with uncertainty.\u00a0 Uncertainty is not that attractive to me.\u00a0 I think it\u2019s more that I\u2019ve been thrown into situations.\u00a0 That\u2019s why, when I was writing a book, and it got hard, I didn\u2019t get discouraged.\u00a0 I was already mentally prepared for difficult things.<\/p>\n

They say emergency medicine attracts the high-risk takers.\u00a0 Often, they are the mountain climbers or motor cyclists.\u00a0 That is not me.\u00a0 I\u2019m actually very conservative when it comes to risk.\u00a0 I think it really comes down to the fact that I am not afraid of difficult things. If you meet a doctor that doesn\u2019t get stressed out, that\u2019s also bad.\u00a0 You want them to be cool and collected, but you also want them to care.<\/p>\n

If you were to give advice to a woman just starting out in either of your professions, what would that be?<\/h3>\n
\"\"
Laura Catena at Calicata<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you are interested in wine, really learn about it.\u00a0 Take a course.\u00a0 Right now, on Zoom, there is a wine class every hour of the day.\u00a0 You can learn about wine for free.\u00a0 I would start tasting wine, learning about wine and visit wineries as they start re-opening.\u00a0 Fall in love with wine.\u00a0 The world is filled with tiny wineries and that is part of the beauty of the world of wine, but it\u2019s hard to make it economically.\u00a0 You have to work really hard whether you are in a small or big winery.\u00a0 You are going to have bad vintages.\u00a0 For us, there are \u00a0exchange rate fluctuations and economic instability.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not an easy business to be in because you are a farmer and there is so much competition.\u00a0 When I first was working with my father, I was traveling between San Francisco and Argentina.\u00a0 When I was in San Francisco, I had a friend who was a sommelier.\u00a0 Every Tuesday, he would taste wine for hours. All of the sales people would come and present their wines.\u00a0 This was my wine university.\u00a0 It was sitting next to a wine buyer, tasting wine, watching people present their products and hearing their stories.\u00a0 I learned more in those sessions than I could have in any wine class.\u00a0 I was seeing why the buyer was buying the wines and learning about regions all over the world.\u00a0 If you can, find a job working at a wine store taking care of customers and hearing their questions.\u00a0 If you can understand why people buy wine, it will make you a better wine maker or sommelier.<\/p>\n

Medicine is similar in the sense that if you really want to be a doctor, you have to be obsessed with helping people.\u00a0 As an emergency physician, you are going to work a lot of nights and a lot of weekends.\u00a0 You should feel comfortable changing somebody\u2019s diaper that is not your family.\u00a0 If that seems like something that you wouldn\u2019t be able to do, then you shouldn\u2019t be a doctor, a nurse or anybody in health care.\u00a0 When people say that they get queasy when they see blood and they couldn\u2019t be a doctor, that\u2019s actually not true.\u00a0 If you get queasy because somebody is bleeding or hurt, you should be a doctor.\u00a0 If you do not get queasy, there is something wrong with you.\u00a0 A doctor or nurse should be distressed by watching somebody hurt or bleeding \u2013 you will get over it though.\u00a0 It\u2019s a sign that you care.<\/p>\n

You have been an inspiration to many.\u00a0 Who inspires you?<\/h3>\n

I\u2019m inspired daily.\u00a0 I find inspiration in little interactions.\u00a0 Of course, when I was growing up, I had an obsession with Mother Theresa.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been inspired by Ghandi, Mandela \u2013 these great figures that spend their lives helping others.\u00a0 But my real inspiration happens daily.\u00a0 If I go to the dog park and I meet an owner that is adorable with my dog, then I\u2019m inspired.\u00a0 I\u2019m inspired by people that I meet at wine tastings.\u00a0\u00a0 My heart is touched by them.\u00a0 My heart is also touched by my patients.\u00a0 I\u2019m inspired daily by how great people are.<\/p>\n

Catena Zapata wines are regularly available in Ontario at LCBO Vintages and the winery\u2019s flagship Catena Malbec<\/a> is on limited time offer for $17.95 beginning July 19 to August 15.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DIVINE X Wines of Argentina In part one of our interview with Laura Catena, we learned what it was like for her to follow in her father\u2019s footsteps, the importance…<\/div>\n
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