Smith-Madrone California Wines

Within the Napa Valley, near the town of St. Helena, lies a little known wine grape growing district known as Spring Mountain. Spring Mountain has been the site of wine grape growing since Civil War times but the region is not favorable to large vineyards because of the mountainous terrain and was always considered the exclusive domain of small boutique wineries. The area consists of just over 30 vineyard/wineries that occupy a mere 1000 acres of land. Considering the huge size of many of the vineyards in the Napa Valley proper, these would be considered to be the equivalent of backyard plantings.
Size however, does not mean everything. These small wineries make some of the best wines coming out of the Napa Valley. Such is the case for the wines of Smith-Madrone where, for over forty years, they have been producing outstanding wines that appear in many serious wine enthusiasts library.

Smith-Madrone Dry 2013 Riesling ($27). We recently featured Riesling wines in a previous column, which we hope you read. We wrote t he Smith-Madrone Riesling but had to pull it because of room considerations and the fact that we were very much impressed by the other Smith-Madrone wines we tasted at the time. This Riesling was made totally dry in the neo-German style and displays the fruity bouquet and intense flavors of apples and peaches with just a touch of citrus that the variety is famous for. Natural acidity gives this wine a perfect balance with the fruit, which is refreshingly crisp, followed by a brilliant aftertaste. According to Smith-Madrone, it is the ultimate wine to accompany seafood salads or the lighter meat dishes such as pork.

Smith-Madrone 2011 Spring Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon ($48). This wine is undoubtedly the crème de la crème of the Napa Valley Cabernet Savignon. It seems that everything clicked in just the right way for both the grapes and the winemaking. The wine a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc was made from grapes from 39 year old vines and then aged in oak barrels for nineteen months. The wine is full bodied and the color is an inky black with flecks of ruby at the edges. The aroma is a compendium of interesting sensations, running from black cherries to tobacco to cedar. The flavor accents dark berries and currents with a whole series of under flavors, the most obvious being chocolate and mint. There is also a mineral quality in this wine that carries over to the extremely long finish. The best word to describe this wine is elegant, and that is exactly what it is, an elegant, well crafted, and thoroughly enjoyable wine. Because of the incredible quality, this wine may enjoyed right now or be put away for many, many years to come to gain additional complexity and depth. The Smith-Madrone 2011 Spring Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon is a beautiful and classical expression of the variety and a wine that should please one and all.

Smith-Madrone 2012 Chardonnay ($32). It is a known fact that many of the legendary French Chardonnays have come from postage stamp size vineyards. In the case of this wine, that fact is eminently proven beyond any doubt. Modern Chards seem to have lost some of their charm and individuality and have wound up as nothing more than taste-alike clones. The Smith-Madrone 2012 Chardonnay is marked by its individuality and depth of flavor and aroma and a return to the style that made Chardonnays popular. This wine displays an up front and quite obvious full fruit aroma stressing honey, pear, and springtime flowers with hints of hazelnut and nutmeg in the background. These aromas carry over to the flavor where they mingle with caramel and butterscotch. There is also a spicy, toasty under flavor that has just a slight hint of oak and vanilla. This is a very pleasant wine that can be enjoyed now or well into 2016. This is a truly premium Chardonnay and worth ev