Wine of the week: Smith-Madrone, 2019 Chardonnay, Napa Valley, Spring Mountain District

For vintner Charles Smith, the bottle that set his path was a Burgundian wine, a 1961 Clos de la Roche he tasted in college.

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“It smelled so great it changed my life,” said Smith, now winemaker of Napa Valley’s Smith-Madrone. “I didn’t become a better, a kinder or a wiser person. But because of it, I did eventually go into the wine business.”

Smith is the winemaker behind our wine of the week winner, the Smith-Madrone, 2019 Chardonnay, Napa Valley, Spring Mountain District, 14.6%, $45. It’s a gorgeous chardonnay with citrus aromas and stone fruit on the palate. Buoyed by crisp acidity, this chardonnay has pitch-perfect balance.

“What people often forget or don’t know is that vintage wine is always, always changing,” Smith said. “This (chardonnay) is a very nice moment for the 2019.”

The popular varietal of chardonnay continues to have great appeal to wine lovers. That’s because the grape is magical, according to Smith.

“Chardonnay is a wonder,” Smith said. “It comes in many distinct styles. Napa’s hillsides are different from Carneros, which is different from Santa Barbara. ... All are different, and all can be excellent. I repeat, chardonnay is a wonder.”

The house style he’s shooting for, Smith said, is Old-World Burgundian.

“The challenge in making chardonnay is, at bottom, the same as it is with any wine,” the winemaker said. “The most important thing is to have a clear sense of the kind of wine your grapes want to become.”

What people might find most surprising about Smith’s winemaking is that he drinks other libations in his off hours.

“Before dinner, I like a really good cocktail,” he said. “I don’t think that’s odd, but it might be surprising to some people who are not in the wine business.”

Smith, 79, graduated from UC Berkeley in 1967 with a degree in English and American literature. He has worked at Smith-Madrone for more than five decades.

Smith’s brother, Stu Smith, founded the winery in 1971. The two brothers are the proprietors, and they handle all the winemaking and grape growing. The boutique winery produces roughly 4,000 cases of wine a year. In addition to chardonnay, it produces riesling, cabernet sauvignon, a proprietary prestige cuvee and a rosé.

Smith-Madrone bottles all of its grapes from its 38 acres of estate vineyards. The expanse of its vineyards includes steep mountainsides and slopes at elevations between 1,300 and 1,900 feet. The entire estate of 200 acres is a mix of vineyards and forests with wildlife traveling through like bears, coyotes and wild turkeys.

“I think we’ve mastered our site, not only the mountain-hillside aspect of our terrain,” Smith said, “but, of course, maximizing the quality of the grapes we grow.”

You can reach Wine Writer Peg Melnik at 707-521-5310 or peg.melnik@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @pegmelnik.