Smith-Madrone Vineyards & Winery Napa Valley

After 25 years I feel like I'm half-way into the project of developing the property of Smith-Madrone. Twenty five years ago, at age 22, arrogant, naive, scared and too stupid to know better, serendipitously, I did several things right. I was pre-Napa Valley, pre-wine, pre-oil embargo, pre-inflation and pre-Cuisinart. The resources available to us then would be laughably inadequate today. Charlie and I have invested literally countless hours of sweat equity to make this project happen and if it weren't for the fact that we were young and strong and had good backs, we would never have succeeded.

Charlie and I not only drove all of the stakes that you see around the winery but all of the stakes in the vineyard---a total of 19,000. We picked up most of the rocks out of the vineyards with our own hands, and while we didn't do the actual logging or drive the D-8s that popped the stumps out of the ground, we did all of the other work. In looking back, the logging and the tractor driving were the two easiest parts.

We endured smashed thumbs, months of ongoing poison oak and heat exhaustion from picking up rocks in those hot July and August days. Fortunately for us, we loved it. And even today there aren't enough hours in the day, days in the week or weeks in the year to do everything we want to do. I have never gotten up and said, "Damn, I've got to go to work." I feel enormously fortunate to be able to do what it is that I love.

I know it can't be, but I seem to recollect that every pair of jeans that we owned in the 1970s had holes in them. It was a wonderful time. It was a great time to start in the wine business. It was in essence the renaissance of the modern California wine business, and we had lots of fun.

In 1971 cabernet sauvignon, pinot noir, johannisberg riesling and chardonnay all sold for $350 a ton. Premium Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon sold for $3.50 a bottle. The grower delivered the grapes in the fall. Based on the previous year's tonnage, a small amount of money was advanced in August. Another advance was paid in December. The winery generally told the grower what the price per ton would be in January, and the final payment for the grapes which had been harvested the previous fall was paid for in the spring. All for $350 a ton, which in 1971 everyone considered pretty good. Now we have chardonnay grapes selling for $1,800 a ton and cabernet sauvignon selling for as high as $2,400 a ton and ultra premium Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon sells for upwards of $75.00 a bottle. Payment today is made 30 days after delivery of the grapes. St. Helena was in 1971 a sleepy agricultural community and the wine business was provincially agricultural, with no traffic on the highways and no chi-chi shops in town, and where contracts were made with handshakes. When we began we were pioneers as production-based growers and winemakers; today the industry is driven by marketing. We believed then and we believe today that it's what's in the bottle that counts, and that we prefer to sell to consumers who taste with their mouths and not with their eyes.