2018 Smith-Madrone Riesling Spring Mountain 750 ml

There’s nothing like Smith-Madrone’s Spring Mountain Riesling.

A wine widely revered as one of the Napa Valley greats, it stepped boldly onto the global stage in 1979, winning Best Riesling in the World from French restaurant guide Gault Millau. It has remained an upper-echelon benchmark since then.

Smith-Madrone sits on backbreaking slopes between 1,300 and 2,000 feet in elevation. In the early 1970s, Stu Smith studied his Spring Mountain landscape for a year before deciding what and how to plant. He chose Cabernet Sauvignon for the flatter stretches facing south and west, and planted Chardonnay on a cool north-facing hillside and a small patch of Riesling on an east-facing slope.

The soils at Smith-Madrone are rocky and rugged, a stressful environment for vines to live in, and that’s exactly how Stu Smith wants it. The vines, which were first planted in the early 1970s and are completely dry-farmed—a real rarity in Napa Valley—sink deep into the red volcanic dirt, where they struggle in search of water and nutrients and yield small, concentrated grapes. What results is a remarkably powerful and intense Riesling.

In most cases, this kind of pedigree would and could merit double the price, but that’s not the Smith-Madrone way. As Decanter wrote in a piece celebrating the winery’s 50-year history, “The Smiths are proudly old school in their winemaking philosophy, the age-worthy, balanced wines they make, the reasonable prices they charge, and the homely way they welcome visitors.”

This is a true Napa classic that every white-wine lover should have in their cellar.