Up on Spring Mountain, about 1,800 feet above the valley floor and the tourist tasting rooms and the cult-wine nonsense that has come to define much of Napa Valley, Stuart Smith and his brother Charles have been quietly doing things the hard way for more than fifty years. No irrigation after the vines get established. No shortcuts. No splashy label redesigns. Just grapes grown on steep, rocky hillside soils that have no business producing anything at all, and yet somehow produce some of the most honest Cabernet Sauvignon in California.
The 2022 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon is a case in point
The vineyard is at high elevation where temperatures are cool and the soils are spare, and you feel the hillside in every sip. This is not a Cabernet built to impress a panel of critics with seventeen adjectives and a score in the high nineties. It is built to go with dinner.
Classic flavors of dark cherry and currant anchor a full-bodied core, with the finish carrying notes of cedar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Ripe black currants and cherries mingle with hints of black tea and bittersweet chocolate, while the structure is lean and racy, the acidity bright and nerve-steadying. There is nothing lavish or swashbuckling here, and all the better for it.
The blend, as has been Smith-Madrone’s tradition, is anchored by Cabernet Sauvignon with small additions of Cabernet Franc and Merlot, the sort of sensible Bordeaux-style assembly that most Napa producers abandoned years ago in favor of pure Cabernet and the power it commands on the auction market.
What to pair with the Estate Cabernet
On the table, the 2022 Estate Cabernet is not a wine that needs to be coaxed into performing. Its firm tannins and bright acidity make it a natural companion for food, not a rival to it. A well-aged rib roast, ideally with a bone still in it, would suit the wine admirably. So would a leg of lamb rubbed with the same herbs (rosemary and thyme) that seem to grow wild right there in the glass. Hard cheeses, a sharp Manchego or an aged Comté would hold their own against the wine’s structure without being overwhelmed. For something more casual, a thick-cut pork chop with wild mushrooms asks nothing of this Cabernet that it cannot readily supply.
What it does not want is anything sweet, anything heavily sauced, or anything designed to flatter the wine rather than complement it. Smith-Madrone’s Cabernet is too straightforward for that kind of fuss.
It has a long life ahead of it. Drink it now if you must, but those with patience and a cool corner of their cellar would do well to leave it alone for another five to eight years.
There are easier wines to find and flashier ones to talk about at dinner parties. But if what you want is a California Cabernet that tastes like a place rather than a formula, this is where you look.
