Smith-Madrone News

Riesling for Mother’s Day!

Rupal Shankar recommends the 2019 Riesling for Mother’s Day in Sante Magazine:

This elegant Napa Valley Riesling is sure to impress your mom. The wine is made from mountain-grown grapes, honoring the international tradition of Riesling which thrives on steep hillsides. The Smith-Madrone Riesling is racy and beautifully balanced with a backbone of juicy fruit acidity. Wonderfully stylish and delicious and built to last. Drink now, or twenty years from now. Seriously! This is perfect for the mom who is a wine connoisseur and appreciates wines that can be drunk now or aged gracefully in the cellar.

10 Wines To Celebrate Mother’s Day

and Isaac James Baker similarly endorses it for Mother’s Day:

Mother’s Day is right around the corner and Summer is on the way, too. So, I wanted to share some bright and joy-giving selections I think would fit perfectly for this season….If you’re looking for very high-quality Riesling, and like saving money, Smith-Madrone’s new release (the 2019) continues with their streak of excellence. It’s one of the best, not just from California, but from anywhere in the U.S. – my humble opinion, of course. It drinks great now since it’s been aged a bit, but don’t hesitate to lay some down for five to eight years, as this will improve in the long run.

Medium yellow color. The nose is so vibrant and sings with these harmonies of white peach, lime, papaya, backed up with white flowers, honey, almond skin, and hints of white pepper and celery seed. On the palate, this is racy and tangy but sports significant depth, and the balance is on-point. The papaya, white peach, banana, and lime fruit blend well with elements of chalk dust, limestone, honey, sea salt, and these deep nuances that need years to develop. Beautiful to drink now (due to its later release), and this will age for so many years. Another win for the Smith-Madrone team!

https://isaacjamesbaker.blogspot.com/2024/05/wines-for-mothers-day-and-beyond.html

“Terrific expression of mountain-grown Cabernet Sauvignon”

TheFermentedFruit tastes the 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon:

A breath of fresh air in a sea of overoaked and over ripe Napa Cabs – the 2019 Smith-Madrone Cabernet Sauvignon is another terrific expression of mountain-grown Cabernet Sauvignon. Intense and lengthy with gorgeous purity of fruit and that mineral backbone we all long for. A superb effort and a really sold value proposition at $65 a bottle.

https://www.instagram.com/stories/thefermentedfruit/3363070781749787779/

2023 Estate Rosé is here

Dear Friends:

May is full of days to celebrate, including May 1. We’re delighted to announce the release of our 2023 Estate Rosé.

Only every couple of years do all the conditions come together in exactly the right way for us to make a Rosé. 2023 was such a year. Because we like to make a blend of Cabernet Franc and Merlot, those two varietals have to ripen at the same time…which happened on October 9 and 10 in 2023.

The wine is a blend of 50% Merlot and 50% Cabernet Franc and is “a delightful shade of pink and truly delicious,” to quote winemaker Charlie Smith.

He describes it for us:

“This is a Rosé with a piercing pink color, full flavor and still a delicate acidity. It opens with a delightful aroma of strawberries, rhubarb and white pepper. That nose rolls over into white peaches and orange blossoms. On the palate, the wine is intensely flavorful and packed with bright red fruit, to a degree unusual in a rosé. It is as though red currants, rhubarb and red cherries all merged into a fourth flavor called Smith-Madrone Rosé. This is a lovely glass of wine with a very high fun quotient that happens to be pink. Simply put, the wine is just delicious!”

Recent visitors to the winery who’ve enjoyed a ‘sneak peek’ of the wine have told us that it’s “a red wine drinker’s Rosé for the summer,” that people who like “bigger” wine will like this, that it’s “bold and beautiful and full of flavor!”

This is a wine which is a very easy partner to almost any spring or summer food you can imagine: we’ve given you some ideas here.

This wine will only be available on our website and at the winery.

We only made 131 cases.

Buy: $30.00 /750ml

The Spring Lineup

Our current releases:

2019 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon
2019 Estate Chardonnay
- 2019 Estate Riesling
2019 Cook’s Flat Reserve
2023 Estate Rosé

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Here are some wonderful reviews of our wines:

2019 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon

Anatoli Levine at Talk-a-Vino reviewed it:

Cabernet Sauvignon, varietally correct and incredibly enticing, even coercing you into the nirvana state – yes, this is how good this wine is.

Buy: $65.00/ 750ml

2019 Estate Chardonnay

Jeff Kralik at Drunken Cyclist has these notes:

Certainly yellow and on its way to golden in the glass with boatloads of lemon curd and a bit of an herbal note (sweet basil) on the nose. The palate is rich and luxurious with plenty of lemon creme pie balanced with an incredibly zingy tartness and more than a hint of oak. … What else could one want?

Buy: $45.00 /750ml

2019 Estate Riesling

AttorneySomm John Jackson wrote:

The 2019 Smith-Madrone Estate Riesling is impressive! A magnificent mix of flavors that included lemon, lime, grapefruit, Valencia orange, and petrol. These flavors were balanced with ample acidity. This wine is very food friendly, but can also be enjoyed on its own!

Buy: $40.00 /750ml

2019 Cook’s Flat Reserve

This wine is a blend of 90% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Cabernet Franc.

Bin 412 wrote:
A crowning jewel in Smith-Madrone’s portfolio, it’s a symphony of blackberry, plum, black currant and all the other dark fruits you can imagine. This wine epitomizes the meticulous approach to blending, resulting in a wine of depth, complexity, and exceptional aging potential.

Buy: $225.00 /750ml

As always we hope you can include a visit to the winery if your travels bring you to Napa Valley.

We send our best wishes,

Stu, Charlie and François

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If you’re in San Francisco on June 10, please come find us at KQED’s Check, Please! Taste and Sip event at The Galleria.

P.S. We’re honored to be one of the wineries supporting Nimbus Arts at its annual Nimbash on May 11 in St. Helena: it’s a great shindig and a wonderful cause.

To rock with your Rosé!

Here are some ideas for delicious partners to the 2023 Estate Rosé!

Whether it’s rich and unctuous like this super-easy baked Gruyere or tangy and smooth like a smoked salmon dip have fun with our new Rosé!

Baked Gruyère

1 sheet of puff pastry (thawed if purchased frozen)
1/3 cup apricot preserves
5 ounces of Gruyère cheese, cut into 1/2” cubes
1/3 cup toasted walnuts, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped
3 tbsp honey
Egg wash (1 egg beaten with 1 tbsp water)

Preheat oven to 400F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
In a bowl, combine the Gruyère cheese cubes, garlic, walnuts and rosemary. Toss to combine and set aside.
On a cutting board sprinkle flour and roll out the sheet of puff pastry into a square. Spoon the apricot preserves in a circle in the center of the square. Pour the seasoned cheese cubes into a pile on top of the preserves in the center of the pastry.
Drizzle with the honey. Fold the four sides up around the Gruyère cheese cubes making sure that it is sealed well. Brush with the egg wash.
Transfer to the baking sheet and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before baking.
Bake for 25 minutes or until the pastry is completely golden.
Serve on a cheese board with fruit, crackers or toasted baguette or in slices cut like pie as a first course.

Salmon Cream Cheese Dip

6 ounces smoked salmon
1 tbsp chopped red onion
8 ounces room temperature cream cheese
2 tablespoons sour cream
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon minced fresh dill
1 teaspoon prepared horseradish
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and whir until smooth and well combined. Chill for at least three hours and serve with toasted bread or crackers or sliced vegetables.

“Don’t miss out on one of California’s greats”

Rich Cook at WineReviewOnline tastes the 2019 Riesling:

96 points: What to say that hasn’t already been said about the Smith brothers’ Riesling commitment? Many thought they should have been “committed” (likely more than once) for not grafting it over to something more market friendly — but thank your lucky stars that they persevered, as I do every time I open one. This continues a long line of age-worthy, drink any time over the next 20 years or so wines that you need to have in your cellar. I say this not as a seller, just as a fellow aficionado that wants to make sure you don’t miss out on one of California’s greats.

https://winereviewonline.com/wine_reviews.cfm

2019 Riesling is “exceptional”

Fredric Koeppel tastes the 2019 Riesling:

A superior Riesling from Napa Valley….not just Napa Valley but specifically from the Spring Mountain District and a seven-acre vineyard that slopes at 34-degrees and lies between 1,300- and 1,900-feet elevation. In other words, the Smith-Madrone Riesling 2019, Spring Mountain, is a mountainside wine whose environment pushes the vines — you could say, stresses them — to send their roots deep through the rocks and into the soil and subsoil for nutrients. In human beings, we would call this process “character-building.”

The color is very pale straw-gold; the bouquet offers intense, penetrating aromas of green apple and pear, tangerine and grapefruit, with beguiling notes of quince, green tea and lychee; a few moments in the glass elicit hints of jasmine and honeysuckle, damp limestone and flint; zinging acidity courses through this riesling like an electrical charge, lending tremendous vivacity and tone and tying together all the elements of ripe peach and pomelo, traces of dried sage and thyme and crystalline limestone minerality; the wine finishes with a high, wild note of slightly bitter grapefruit, bringing a perfect sense of balance. 13.3% alcohol. Now through 2030 to ‘34. Brothers Charles Smith and Stuart Smith produced 1,087 cases. Exceptional.

https://biggerthanyourhead.substack.com/p/wine-of-the-day-no-826

Stu is quoted in The San Francisco Chronicle in a discussion about 1970s-style wines and whether they’re back in vogue

Esther Mobley in the April 10 San Francisco Chronicle:

“It isn’t just flared jeans and Fleetwood Mac. There’s another relic of the 1970s experiencing a comeback: the decade’s Napa Valley wines. Younger California vintners these days routinely cite “Napa from the 1970s” as their inspiration. Lately, the subject has come up almost weekly in my interviews with winemakers, including many who aren’t making wine in Napa Valley at all. They describe their intended style as “retro.” What these ’70s worshipers are trying to emulate, broadly, is Cabernet Sauvignon that was low in alcohol, with chewy tannins and plenty of vegetal flavors — a style that fell out of favor in the ’80s and ’90s when Napa Valley wines got riper, fruitier and more polished.……..

“Nobody who’s lived through the ’70s wants to go back to that equipment,” said Stu Smith, who co-founded Smith-Madrone Vineyards in 1974. Those green, herbal flavors? Those are due to compounds called pyrazines, which can be mitigated by increasing the sun exposure on the vine. But “we didn’t know anything about that until the late ’70s,” said Smith. The flavors appeared whether the winemakers wanted them or not.…………….

The winemakers who lived through those decades believe that the new technology, knowledge exchange with other global regions and improved farming techniques all have changed their wines for the better….”

The complete article: https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/wine/article/napa-1970s-19325647.php

Charlie is interviewed at LifeBetweenTheVines

Charlie is interviewed by Ray Fister:

lifebetweenthevines

April 9, 2024

Smith-Madrone Winery dates back to the very early 1970s in Napa Valley, a time when wineries weren’t so common. Stuart and Charlie Smith literally carved out an incredible future in fine wine making back then and have maintained top quality all those years. It’s been way too long since I last sat down with Charlie for an interview, in fact it’s been since 2013, and it was great to get caught up. Times have changed but one thing has not, the quest for making the best wine possible.

Viva Nimbash!

For many years we’ve been honored to support one of Napa Valley’s most impactful non-profits—Nimbus Arts, which offers a huge range of art programs for children & adults up and down the Valley.

As in previous years, we’ll be one of the wineries pouring our wine and supporting Nimbus Arts at the 15th annual NIMBASH fundraiser. The theme this year is AI – Art Intelligence. Think of the interconnectedness found in nature, the cosmos and the world of art and creativity.

Festivities take place on Saturday, May 11 from 5:30-10:00 pm at Charles Krug Winery, 2800 Main St, St Helena. Tickets are sold out but there is a waiting list at https://www.nimbusarts.org/nimbash-2024-waitlist/.

The evening includes great art activities, lots of wines and foods to try before a fun dinner and then a wild fashion show and benefit auction. We’ll be there with a table pouring our wines before dinner and have donated wines for a dinner and a super-special 3L double magnum of 2019 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon for the auction.

Lots of great photos from past years are here: https://www.nimbusarts.org/nimbash/photo-galleries/

New spring releases! 2019 Riesling & 2018 Cook’s Flat Reserve

Happy Spring!

In recent news, we are grateful for a great honor our Riesling recently received. At Houston’s 2024 Rodeo Uncorked! International Wine Competition in February, our 2018 Riesling was awarded Reserve Grand Champion Best of Show, Class Champion, Double Gold. At the auction celebrating the Competition, a 9-liter bottle of this wine raised $225,000, the second highest amount for a lot in the history of the event. More details are here.

On to thoughts of spring! What will you be celebrating this spring? Holidays like Easter and Passover? A graduation or two? The arrival of wonderful weather and good friends for dinner?

At Smith-Madrone we’re celebrating two new releases—the 2019 Estate Riesling and the 2018 Cook’s Flat Reserve.

The 2018 Cook’s Flat Reserve is a blend of 87% Cabernet Sauvignon and 13% Cabernet Franc.

Charlie’s thoughts on the wine:
The 13% Cabernet Franc makes itself felt right from the start. The wine has a pronounced dark fruit aroma with an unmistakable suggestion of roses, tobacco, cassis and violets, plus potent hints of black and white pepper and turmeric. On the palate the 87% Cabernet Sauvignon asserts itself with a clear expression of its Smith-Madrone origin. It has a lovely silky texture on top of a fruity and youthful mid-palate. The proverbial iron fist in a velvet glove. This, then, leads into a lip-smacking finish of soft tannins and gentle acidity. A worthy Cook’s Flat Reserve in every way.

We made only 2,300 bottles, each of which is wrapped in our proprietary full-color tissue, which reproduces our land patent signed by President Chester Arthur in 1884. Cook’s Flat Reserve is so important to us that we have a website devoted entirely to it: http://www.cooksflatreserve.com, where you’ll find its history and more.

Buy: $225.00.

The 2019 Riesling, made from the mountain slopes surrounding the winery at the top of the Spring Mountain District growing region, is 100% Riesling.

Charlie describes it: Aromatically, the wine opens with Meyer lemons, pomelo, orange flowers and just a dab of mandarin orange hiding shyly behind a rose bush. This is all backed up with a solid dose of minerality. On the palate the wine is racy and beautifully balanced with a backbone of juicy fruit acidity. Wonderfully stylish and delicious and built to last. Drink now, or twenty years from now. Seriously.

We only made 1,087 cases.

Buy: $40.00.

And on the horizon….only every couple of years do we make a Rosé, and we have made one with the 2023 vintage. We’ll be releasing it on May 1.

For the first time, in 2021, we made a Cabernet Franc and it will be released this fall.
Stu will be traveling this spring! Look for him at vinNEBRASKA in Omaha April 5-6 (he’s attended every year since 1990; this will be his final appearance!).

And if you’re in Davenport, Iowa, on April 13, come find him at the St. Ambrose University Wine Festival Dinner. Details here.

As always we hope you can include a visit to the winery if your travels bring you to Napa Valley. Until that happens, please follow us on Instagram and Facebook.

We send our best wishes,

Stu, Charlie and François

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PS. If you’re in San Francisco on June 10, please come find us at public television KQED’s Taste & Sip event at The Galleria.