Smith-Madrone Spring Mountain Napa Valley “Cooks Flat” Cabernet Sauvignon

This is a limited production wine created by the careful selection and blending of a small group of the best barrels the vintage has to offer.

This wine is an absolute classic. Superlative barely can do it justice. It opens with masses of black currant, black cherry and all shades of blue-black fruit pouring out of the glass in an endless wave of heady perfume. Oh, my!

The promise of the aroma is realized at the first sip. It’s that magic combination of power and finesse, flavor and grace, that everyone tries for, but is seldom achieved.

Here it is in abundance. Dark, vibrant fruit, sleek and seductive, rises out of a potent mid-palate that cloaks a great inner energy. And for all that, as good as it is now, the lovely acidity and fine grain tannins suggest that there is still plenty of time for the wine to grow and develop. Is it possible to improve on perfection? The 2016 Cook’s Flat Reserve is a wine that may well be able to provide a definitive answer to that tantalizing question.

Each individually numbered and tissue-wrapped bottle of Cook’s Flat Reserve represents our uncompromising pursuit of perfection in winemaking. The tissue is a copy of the U.S. Land Office patent, signed by President Chester A. Arthur, granting
ownership of the land to George Cook. That original document hangs in the winery and is an important part of our history. We chose this name in tribute to George Cook, the first owner of the property and the person who originally planted the vines here in the 1800s.

Smith-Madrone was founded in 1971 with the purchase of 200 wild acres at the very top of Spring Mountain in the Napa Valley. Over the years we have personally cleared the and, planted and nurtured grapes on 37 of these acres and have made wine from those grapes since 1977. Our vines grow at an elevation of 1,800-feet on very steep slopes (up to 35%) in red “Aiken” soil, derived from weathered volcanic materials and sedimentary rock.