Champagne Wishes Sneak Preview: SMITH-MADRONE ON THE ROAD Founder/GM Stu Smith travels to East Current releases are 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon, 2007 Chardonnay Entirely estate-vineyard-produced at 2,000 feet above Napa Valley floor

Stu Smith, who founded Smith-Madrone Vineyards & Winery on top of Spring Mountain in the Napa Valley in 1971, today alternates growing grapes and making wine with traveling to visit customers, has spent the spring on the road. Smith-Madrone’s current releases are the Chardonnay (2007, $40/bottle) and Cabernet Sauvignon (2004, $45). The 2008 Riesling is sold out; the 2009 Riesling will be released in late summer, 2010.  Whom You Know looks forward to working with this brand further and we will keep you posted.  Peachy Deegan met with Stu recently during his Manhattan excursion and the Champagne Wishes panel is looking forward to releasing review results.  We certainly hope that Manhattan was the highlight of his extravaganza....it is for many we meet with, in the U.S. anyway!  (We love London too.)

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In April he went South, traveling to Durham, Raleigh, Wilmington (where he met fans at a dinner at Pazzo www.pazzo-restaurant.com and a wine tasting at Hope Valley Bottle Shop http://www.hvbottleshop.com, a wine tasting at Pine Valley Market, www.pinevalleymarket.com and a dinner at Marcs on Market www.marcsonmarket.com) before going to Beaufort NC where he was a panelist and participant at The Beaufort Wine & Food Festival, a benefit for Beaufort’s Maritime Museum http://www.ncmaritime.org. He continued to Myrtle Beach SC where he was the guest of honor at a tasting and bottle signing at WineStyles www.winestyles.net/carolinaforest. In Charleston SC, the next evening, he met fans of Smith-Madrone at a winemaker dinner at Anson, www.ansonrestaurant.com.

In May he went to Des Moines for several days, hosting a reception at Ingersoll Wine & Spiritshttp://www.ingersollwine.com/ and also a winemaker dinner at Django Restaurant http://www.djangodesmoines.com/.

In June Stu blitzed through New York and New Jersey, learning the subway system (and that DUMBO stands for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass and is a terrific Brooklyn neighborhood). He poured his wine at a wine-and-cheese open house at the new West Elm store in DUMBO www.westelm.com before continuing to The Rams Head Innwww.ramsheadinn.com in Galloway for a winemaker dinner.

Back home, Stu pours Smith-Madrone’s current releases at Lolo’s http://www.lolosconsignment.com/ on the first Friday of every month as part of St. Helena’s Cheers! event http://www.cheerssthelena.com/.  Early in June a crew from Neiman-Marcus spent a sunny Saturday using the winery’s row of century-old olive trees and Riesling vineyard as a backdrop for their upcoming fall catalogue.

All of the winery’s wines are made from the estate vineyards surrounding the winery, planted 34 years ago by brothers Stuart Smith and Charles Smith. The vineyards are dry-farmed on steep mountainsides surrounding the winery on top of Spring Mountain in the Napa Valley. At elevations between 1,300 and 2,000 feet, the vineyards extend in steepness up to 35% slopes. With its signature deep red Aiken loam soil, Smith-Madrone is located at the highest point in the Spring Mountain District appellation.

Customers can order online (www.smithmadrone.com) or by contacting the winery by phone or mail or visiting in person, by appointment.

The winery made 420 cases of its 2008 Riesling, which was available at $27/bottle before it sold out. The 2009 will be released late summer, 2010. “The 2008 harvest started early, was very short, and excellent quality,” winemaker Charles Smith explains. “Harvest began in late August during an intense heat spell and then, like 2007, the weather turned quite moderate and continued that way into mid-October.  Usually we start harvest in early September with Chardonnay and then move on to Riesling.  But in 2008 we not only harvested the Riesling before Chardonnay, we harvested the Riesling on August 28 and 29 – more than two weeks earlier than usual. The wine is very pale compared to most other white wines, it has just a titch more color than most of our Rieslings have had at this stage. The wine has an intense, yet lovely typical Riesling aroma.  The flavors are of fresh tropical fruits that fill the mouth and linger for a very long time,” he adds. The wine is called ‘dry,’ with 0.7 per cent residual sugar. The wine is 100% estate-vineyard-grown Riesling.

The winery made 754 cases of its 2007 Chardonnay, which is available at $40/bottle. “Because of a heat spike in mid-August, the 2007 vintage started early,” says General Partner Stu Smith. “This Chardonnay is a lovely vibrant medium yellow, with a mixture of green apples, pears and lemons in the aroma.  This is a very user friendly, hedonistic wine that is fun to drink, but still ‘serious.’ The middle palate is soft, lush and round; the wine has an underlying backbone of acid which makes it work wonderfully with food,” he says. The wine is 100% estate-vineyard-grown Chardonnay.

There is still a limited amount of the 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon available ($45/bottle). “This is a fabulous wine that is big, chewy, full-flavored and seems to turns your wine glass permanently red,” winemaker Charles Smith says. Stu Smith describes the wine as “a wonderfully deep, dark red color with crushed violets and cedar on the aroma.  The wine is soft, silky and elegant, with a sturdy structure and long finish on the palate. Unfined and unfiltered, the wine spent 22 months in new American oak; it may throw a small deposit as it ages,” he adds.” The varietal mix is 82% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Merlot and 8% Cabernet Franc---all estate-vineyard-grown. Charles Smith offers more detail: “looking for that old fashioned Napa Valley kick-ass Cabernet Sauvignon, but without all those harsh tannins? Here it is.  On the palate it is big, smooth, full and has a velvety mouth feel.” 

Smith-Madrone was founded in 1971 by Stuart Smith. He explains “our goal is to make artisanal wines which are distinctive and are an expression of both the vintage and us, as vintners, but above all else, are wines which bring pleasure to the senses.  Every year our wine is made from the same vineyards, pruned by the same people in the same way, cultivated in exactly the same manner and harvested at similar levels of maturity, yet Mother Nature stamps each vintage with a unique set of flavors, senses and character.”

Inside the winery the ‘patent’ signed by President Chester A. Arthur is proudly displayed—this is the document from December 5, 1884 granting title from the U.S. government to George W. Cook. There are numerous other intriguing historical traces on the property: Chinese workers had cleared the land in the mid-nineteenth century and left behind meticulous rock piles, stone walls and underground caves. Parts of the ranch had been vineyard over a century ago; California black bears and other wildlife once thrived here; enormous 120-year-old Picholine olive trees frame a path down to the floor of the Napa Valley and Bothe Napa Valley State Park. The winery’s name combines the commitment of the Smith brothers as well as the most predominant tree on the property—madrones are evergreens which can be low and shrubby or tall and stately, with a red-brown trunk and branches. In spring the tree bears lily-of-the-valley-like flower clusters; in fall orange-red berries appear.

Smith-Madrone is open for tours and tastings Monday-Saturday, at 4022 Spring Mountain Road, St. Helena, California 94574, 707/963-2283, www.smithmadrone.com, info@smithmadrone.com. Tastings and tours are complimentary and are always conducted by one of the Smith brothers.