Stu Smith founded Smith-Madrone in 1971 high atop Spring Mountain in northwestern Napa Valley. By today's Napa Valley standards, it's a rustic outpost that makes restrained wines with a pronounced sense of place at moderate alcohol levels. It's a classic, a bit of an outlier, and makes wines of exceptional quality, and if you're in the area, it's a great place to book an advance appointment for a visit. Their old vine Riesling gets plenty of well-deserved kudos, but the Cabs are pretty damn good, and I consider Spring Mountain my favorite sub-AVA of Napa Valley because of it's rugged, lean soils, complex geology, and the forests that lend a lot of aromatic nuances to the wines. This Cabernet clearly articulates this terroir with madrone scrub, rocky mineral, iron, and capsicum aromas. On the palate it's bone dry with black cherry and black currant flavors, more minerality, great acid and moderate tannin. If the finish seems a little short, it's only because this wine is completely dry, and refreshingly lacking in the sappy sweetness that Napa's most overblown wines often have. This is a Napa Cab that's built to last, and it grows on you sip after sip. (94 Points)
- Tim Teichgraeber
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