For immediate release Contact: Julie Ann Kodmur, 707/963-9632, www.SmithMadroneis35.com, corking@julieannkodmur.com or Stuart Smith, 707/963-2283, nvhigh@aol.com, www.smithmadrone.com High-res photos available at www.smithmadrone.com and www.SmithMadroneis35.com

SMITH-MADRONE CELEBRATES 35TH ANNIVERSARY Pioneer of mountain grapegrowing in Napa Valley recaps its history at www.SmithMadroneis35.com

Spring Mountain, St. Helena, Napa Valley, California, summer 2006---Smith-Madrone Winery is celebrating its 35th anniversary virtually by launching a new website---www.SmithMadroneis35.com. It details the winery’s achievements, the background of the two brothers who established the winery, the unusual history of the property and has a spot for people to reminisce about what 35 years as a vineyard-estate winery on top of Spring Mountain in the Napa Valley means in today’s world. Each page of the website includes reminiscences, such as Stu’s musing that “my brother Charlie and I not only drove all of the stakes around the winery but all of the stakes in the vineyard---a total of 19,000.  We endured smashed thumbs, months of ongoing poison oak and heat exhaustion from picking up rocks.  Fortunately for us, we loved it. I feel enormously fortunate to be able to do what it is that I love.  It was a wonderful time, in essence the renaissance of the modern California wine business.”

Here’s a quick context for the year 1971: the Oscar for best movie went to The French Connection; the best song was the theme from Shaft; Bridge over Troubled Waters won the Grammy for best song; the ‘Pentagon Papers’ were published; the 26th Amendment to the Constitution became law, lowering the voting age to 18; The London Bridge moved to the Arizona desert and American astronauts rode their rover around on the moon.

In May, 1971, Stuart Smith bought the ‘terroir’ which today is Smith-Madrone Winery. He was 22 years old and had just received his B.A. in Economics from UC Berkeley and was taking classes towards his Master’s in Viticulture at UC Davis. In looking for land to plant vineyard in the Napa Valley, he explored a forest on the remotest and highest part of Spring Mountain and discovered a property which had been a vineyard in the 1880s.

Smith-Madrone produces less than 5,000 cases a year of three types of wine---all of which are entirely estate-vineyard-wines (i.e. grown in the vineyards surrounding the winery): Chardonnay, Riesling and Cabernet Sauvignon. At elevations between 1,300 and 2,000 feet, with vineyards which range in steepness up to 35%, Smith-Madrone is located at the highest point in the Spring Mountain District appellation.  There are numerous intriguing historical traces on the property: Chinese workers had cleared the land in the mid-nineteenth century and left behind meticulous rock piles, stone walls and underground caves.  A striking historical and visual note is the dramatic corridor of 22 Picholine olive trees---more than a hundred years old--which descend the slope beneath the winery into the vineyards. 

Smith-Madrone pioneered a number of ‘firsts:’ these include being one of the first wineries to dry-farm in Napa Valley, being a leader in the move to clarify varietal labeling by becoming the first American winery to use only ‘Riesling’ on its labels as of 1983 (preceding all other U.S. wineries by 15 years), winning ‘Best Riesling In The World’ at the Gault-Millau International Wine Championships in Europe in 1979 and being the first American winery to re-release winery-cellared Rieslings many years later (e.g. the 1997 vintage in 2004).

Brothers Stuart and Charles Smith are the vineyard managers and winemakers of Smith-Madrone Winery.  Their family lineage includes David Hume, the eighteenth century Scottish philosopher and historian.  Also in the family attic is the Fetherolf family, German farmers from the Palatinate region, who came to America on The Good Ship Thistle in 1730.  The name for the winery came as a tribute to the Smith brothers who pursued their dream and to the madrone trees which distinguish the property.

A testament to the sheer rugged beauty of Smith-Madrone is that a dramatically beautiful image of fog creeping over steep rows of mountain vineyard at Smith-Madrone Vineyards, taken by photographer Chuck O'Rear in 1988, may well be the widely used photograph in the wine world, having been used on the covers of The Winemaker’s Dance: Exploring Terroir in the Napa Valley (Jonathan Swinchatt and David Howell, UC Press, 2004), Sunset Magazine (April 1995), Dreamers of the Valley of Plenty: A Portrait of the Napa Valley (Cheryll Barron, Scribners, 1995), Wine Country: California’s Napa and Sonoma Valleys (John Doerper, Fodor’s, 1998) and The 2000 St. Helena Chamber of Commerce.

  The winery’s achievements: http://www.smithmadroneis35.com/achievements.htm Background of the Smith brothers: http://www.smithmadroneis35.com/smiths.htm History of the property: http://www.smithmadroneis35.com/history.htm Interactive/type in your opinion: http://www.smithmadroneis35.com/contact.htm