Ernesto Bajda: maintaining good quality control is “an essential pillar”

Looking forward to the launch of db’s forthcoming Master Winemaker 100 which is published next week, Catena Zapata winemaker Ernesto Bajda – who has been named as one of the Master Winemakers for the second year in a row – highlights the importance of analysis in reaching true quality.

He describes his favourite part of the job as “seeing and feeling the transformation” from terroir to grapes, then into wine. “Being part of this process, a mix of science and art, is, to me, the most exciting thing every day,” he says.

Maintaining quality control is “an essential pillar” of this process, he says, and the more information the winemaker has throughout the winemaking, the more chance there is to learn and react faster.

“At Catena Zapata, we focus on having traceability and quality control at a barrel scale,” he explains. “The best expression of the terroir can only be achieved by closely monitoring the winemaking process.”

In the past, knowledge was acquired by trial and error and transferred from generation to generation, year by year, but the access to tools and technology that makes close monitoring in real-time possible have offered a huge advance. This scientific knowledge only strengthens the magic of winemaking, Bajda insists.

And Bajda certainly has a magic touch: he has scooped three Masters in the Global Masters series in recent years, for three vintages of his Catena Zapata Malbec Argentino (2013, 2017, and 2019), and he says he is honoured and proud to be included in the Master Winemaker 100 for the second time.
The guide, which will be launched at Wine Paris in February, celebrates 100 talented cellar-based winemakers crafting exceptional wines – those deemed Wine Masters by judges who are themselves Masters of Wine.

“It is always necessary to compare ourselves with the best in the world, whether it is a competition, a tasting, or receiving wine scores,” he notes, adding that there is also a natural impulse for consumers to look for specialist confirmation when purchasing a product – whether a car, a phone or a bottle of wine – and these markers of quality are hugely useful in this regard.

“The Global Masters Series is especially important to us, as it has garnered a great reputation in the drinks industry over the years,”
he said.