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. About $40.
A sample for review.