Smith-Madrone · Spring Mountain, Napa Valley
The mountain was the decision.
Stu and Charlie Smith chose a place, built a winery from it and kept learning what it asked of them. Riesling belonged in the plan from the beginning.
Before there was a winery, there were old grape stakes in a forest.
Stuart Smith found evidence of somebody else’s vineyard while looking for a place to plant his own.
The winery’s history describes old grape stakes among the trees on Spring Mountain. The land had carried vines in the nineteenth century. By the time Stu explored it, the forest had reclaimed much of the scene.
That is a better beginning than a blank slate. There was a clue on the ground, a previous attempt, and enough possibility to make a young man imagine the work ahead. In 1971, he bought the property with help from a partnership of family and friends.
A mountain vineyard asks for more than enthusiasm about a view. The slope remains steep after the paperwork is signed. The rocks do not become easier to move because the idea is good. Smith-Madrone’s story interests me because the romantic decision was followed by decades of thoroughly practical ones.
The name keeps both sides present: the Smith family and the madrone trees. People and place, joined before anyone could know how long they would be working together.
Learning, building, staying
Two brothers with lives beyond the vineyard.
1977The first vintage, after years spent establishing the vineyard and winery.
Stu was twenty-two when he bought the property. He had studied economics at Berkeley and was studying viticulture at UC Davis. Charles, usually called Charlie, had studied English literature and worked as a teacher before joining him in the early 1970s.
The company biographies have room for other enthusiasms. Stu has spent time canoeing wilderness rivers. Charlie played croquet internationally. These are people with interests, opinions and lives that extend beyond the bottles carrying their surname.
But the work on the mountain was substantial. According to the winery’s winemaking account, the brothers built the winery using stone and lumber from the property. The first vintage came in 1977.
There is something satisfying about that sequence. Land becomes vineyard. Material becomes building. The building eventually holds wine. Each stage depends on somebody finishing a great deal of work that cannot be accomplished by explaining the vision more eloquently.
I also like what a shared project of that length implies. A family name on a label is a small thing to print. Years of decisions made together give it weight. The Smith-Madrone story has the brothers’ physical labor in its foundations.
A place in the original plan
Riesling was never an afterthought.
The estate’s planting record puts Riesling beside Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon in 1972. Stu assigned varieties to different exposures rather than treating the mountain as one uniform growing surface.
That detail changes how I read the company. Riesling belongs to its founding judgment about the land. It has a place in the vineyard because somebody considered what would grow there, then stayed with the decision long enough to learn from it.
The plan could change, too. Pinot Noir was among the early plantings and was later grafted over to Chardonnay. Commitment to a place did not require every first decision to remain untouched.
That is the interesting balance. A business can have a durable point of view while allowing experience to improve it. The identity comes from what its people pay attention to, including the evidence that tells them to do something differently.
Riesling’s continued place in the estate makes the original conviction visible. It is a long conversation with a particular part of a mountain, carried forward one growing season at a time.
Conviction meets the weather
A farming principle still needs a farmer.
Smith-Madrone is known for dry farming. The more revealing story lies in the care Stu takes to explain what that means in practice.
In a 2023 interview with Grape and Wine, he described watering the original vines in their first year and dry farming them afterward. He also explained the decision to retain drip equipment for newer plantings because future conditions were uncertain. The current fact sheet describes minimal irrigation, if any, since 2017.
I respect the qualification. It is less tidy than a claim that no water is ever applied. It is also more useful. The responsibility is to the living vineyard, which has to endure whatever conditions arrive.
A method can guide attention without replacing judgment. The fact that somebody has used it for decades may make that person more aware of its limits. There is maturity in being able to explain both the belief and the circumstances that could require a response.
The winery’s account of its vintages has the same openness to variation. The vineyard and the people can remain familiar while the season changes what they have to work with. Experience supplies knowledge; it does not remove the need to notice what is happening now.
The mountain still has work for them
In 2026, another kind of planting project.
A June 2026 winery report describes a hillside-restoration project with PCI Ecological, the California Land Stewardship Institute and Fish Friendly Farming. Crews used a modified form of hügelkultur, burying woody debris in mounds arranged along slopes.
The reported work includes positioning logs, packing brush and soil, then applying native seed and straw. Its aims include reducing erosion and sediment movement while making use of woody material already on the site. Those are the project’s intended benefits; its long-term results will need time.
What draws me to it is the continued willingness to work on the place. More than fifty years after the founding, the mountain remains an active responsibility. The business has a history, but the land has present needs.
There is new experience inside the winery as well. Associate winemaker François Bugué joined in 2021 after twenty-six years at Cain Cellars. He grew up on a vineyard in Cognac. A company strongly associated with two brothers still has room for another person’s years of learning.
That makes the story feel alive. Its continuity includes people and practices arriving, being considered and becoming part of the work.
The decision gets made again every year.
Smith-Madrone’s history includes old olive trees preserved when the vineyard was planted. I keep coming back to that image alongside the grape stakes Stu found in the woods: traces of earlier work, left in the company of something new.
It would be easy to make the brothers’ story entirely about independence. The more interesting subject is attention. Which slope suits which vine? What does a young planting need? What should remain from the earlier landscape? What does this season require that the last one did not?
Those questions give the independence a purpose. Stu and Charlie chose a mountain, then accepted the obligation to keep learning it. The wines carry that decision into other people’s homes and onto other people’s tables.
Riesling was in the plan from the beginning. So was the mountain. The work between the two has occupied a lifetime.
Rob Urban
The story, in context
The people, the vines and the place.
Who founded Smith-Madrone?
Stuart Smith founded Smith-Madrone in 1971 with a partnership of family and friends. His brother Charles joined him in the early 1970s and became the winery’s winemaker.
Why is Riesling important to Smith-Madrone?
Riesling was among the varieties planted in 1972. It was part of the original vineyard plan, with eastern exposure chosen for its vines, and remains one of the estate’s wines.
Does Smith-Madrone never irrigate its vineyards?
The winery is known for dry farming, but an absolute no-irrigation claim would be inaccurate. Its current fact sheet says the vineyards have been minimally irrigated, if at all, since 2017. Stu Smith has also described retaining irrigation equipment for young vines and uncertain conditions.
Where is Smith-Madrone?
Smith-Madrone is on Spring Mountain, west of St. Helena in Napa Valley, at 4022 Spring Mountain Road. Visits are by appointment; contact the winery for current arrangements.