Day 3 in Wine Country: Smith-Madrone triumphant

Curly, the official winery greeter

Our third day in wine country began much the way the others had. The weather was almost sweater-worthy. The fog obscured the mountains around Calistoga. We pointed the car south on the St. Helena highway, picked up some picnic items in St. Helena, then took the right turn to head up a narrow, windy road to Spring Mountain. Our destination: Smith-Madrone. Finding the winery was a bit of a challenge, but the directions the winery provided us were helpful ("when in doubt, turn right!"). Smith-Madrone is a working winery with no tasting room, no dedicated pourers, and about as little pretension as one might imagine. We parked the car in what looked like a parking ... area and were greeted by an English setter (I think). He led us down the walk to the winery. Stu Smith, one of the two owners, was up on a ladder tripping the hedges. "That's Curly," he told us. "The official winery greeter." I knew it was Stu Smith because of his distinctive facial hair, a full beard and walrus mustache. He eyed me steadily from the ladder. "Are we expecting you?" he asked. Indeed you are, I replied. "Then Curly will take you around the way," he said. Then he went back to work. Curly was as good as his word. Stu's older brother Charles was in the winery, working when we pushed open the enormous sliding door and stepped inside. He turned and greeted us, and asked if we could wait a few minutes. We assured him it was no problem. "Let me pour you something," he said, and promptly poured a glass of Chardonnay for each of us. We walked out, past the holding tanks, and into the vineyards, which start literally right outside the winery's doors.

Hillside vineyards

The vineyards at Smith-Madrone sit on a steep slope. The mountain loam seems fertile enough, but the tough vines look dry and haggard. They practically scowl at you from the roots. The Smith brothers used drip irrigation to establish the vines but now dry farm the vineyard. So the roots dig deep into the mountainside in search of water and nutrients. If the Chardonnay in our hands was any indication, the minerality was apparent, as were subtle flavors past the usual Chardonnay tropical fruits. Here were wines of complex flavors and a round quality.

Charlie, meanwhile, had opened up the doors and called us back in. Curly trotted along after us. We talked for a few minutes, getting to know one another, before Stu came in for some reason or another. He talked briefly with Charlie, who introduced us all around. The Smith brothers were particularly keen to learn that my wife was from western Canada, as part of their clan was located out there. They all talked briefly about how beautiful Banff was. "Watch out for the elk during mating season," my wife said. "They have been known to go after cars." Stuart Smith was unimpressed. "Not if I have my gun," he remarked. If the boar's head on the wall was any indication, we had stumbled across an avid hunter. 

the tough mountain vines

Stu left to go back to work, and Charlie began pouring other wines. Smith-Madrone is famous for their Riesling, which may well be the best in North America. That, of course, is a loaded claim for which there will be no definitive proof, but even the great Steve Heimoff, whose affection for Sonoma County vineyards is no secret, pays homage to the Smith brothers' grapes. I loved the Riesling. It is a wonderful wine, pairable with spicy food, and good on a hot day when a sip or two brings memories of drinking from a mountain spring, with that hint of limestone especially in the back of the mouth. 

As if we needed any reminder that this was a working winery, or that it was the owner who was talking to us, Charlie kept having to take phone calls during our visit. They were always quite short, and it allowed me a chance to take photographs or pet Curly, who had taken up residence under the casks. We tasted the Cabernet and the new Cabernet reserve--Cook's Flat, which is only the fourth varietal that Smith-Madrone produces. It is also four times the price of their Cabernet. This is a wine made for collectors, not for drinkers. It was noticeably different from the Smith-Madrone cab, both by its elegance and range of flavors.  It carries the promise of ageability, if that is even a term. I am obviously out of my depth here.

A barrel in the storage room

"I don't like to describe a wine before you taste it," explained Charlie, apropos of nothing in particular. But it was thrilling to taste a wine that didn't have a paragraph of praise written by the winemaker instructing the taster to find "kiwi, strawberry, and hints of passion fruit" followed by a palate of granite and a "touch" of asphalt. It reminded me of how poor my palate really is, but it also allowed me to explore and expand it. What struck me immediately and has stuck with me ever since my first taste of their wines was just how elegant and, well, European, they tasted. Charlie and Stu prefer balanced wines, not the heavy fruit bombs lobbed into the market by the unthinking producers searching for strong Robert Parker reviews. I got the distinct sense that the Smith brothers make the wine that they want to make. Reviewers be damned.

Curly in the vines. Chewing on a rock.

We shook hands at the end of the tour. Although another group was waiting, he let us hang around to talk about our respective childhoods and, of all things, the Civil War. He wrote down a few of my book recommendations. We said our goodbyes. Charlie told us both to come back to the winery if we were ever back out in Napa Valley.

All of which sounded quite good.  We walked up the hill to the winery's picnic spot. Curly dutifully trotted after us. As I trained my camera lens on vines and olive trees and circling red-tail hawks, I couldn't help but feel like I'd seen something special. As Stu said to us, "once you've seen the top of Spring Mountain, nothing else compares." It was definitely a hidden part of Napa. Perhaps not too hidden, but away from the investment bankers and oilmen who prowled the tasting rooms looking for $1000 Cabernets to show off and the half-in-the-bag bridal parties coasting the wineries in slender sundresses before the big send off. It was quiet up here. And the wine was ... beautiful.

The view from Spring Mountain

Spring Mountain invoked for me memories of growing up in the cattle country of southern Arizona. The Smith Brothers could easily have been ranchers and the community of Sonoita back in the 1970s probably bore a lot of resemblance to Napa, at least in terms of the characters it attracted.  But the economic dynamics were worlds apart. Cattle take more resources than grapes, and that industry was doomed for the small producers, at least in the water-parched desert where 15,000 acres was needed to run 500 head of cattle. When the federal government contemplated tripling grazing fees in the 1980s, the last of the small ranchers headed out, and ranches became land-investment properties for the über-wealthy. Corporatization has also taken Napa and Sonoma. But small producers still have a niche to fill, so we still get to enjoy Smith-Madrone wines. And we are better for it.