Smith-Madrone Winery became the venue this summer for a Hügelkultur project, designed and implemented by PCI Ecological in collaboration with California Land Stewardship Institute (CLSI) and Fish Friendly Farming.
Hügelkultur (pronounced hyoo-gul-culture) is a centuries-old German gardening method that translates to “hill or mound culture.” It involves building raised garden beds by burying rotting wood, branches, and other organic debris under layers of soil and compost. The technique itself is not a modern invention. Variations of burying logs, branches, and woody debris beneath planting beds have been practiced in parts of Germany and Eastern Europe for centuries, probably dating back to the Middle Ages as a practical way to dispose of wood while improving poor soils.
Here’s a link to more detail on the basics of the winery, which was founded by Stu Smith in 1971. Located in Napa County, its wines are made entirely from the dry-farmed estate vineyards surrounding the winery on top of Spring Mountain, which sit on steep slopes at elevations between 1,300 and 2,000 feet, with dramatic views to the north, east and south of the Napa Valley.
Stu Smith is the general partner, as part of a management team that includes his brother and winemaker, Charles F. Smith III, and associate winemaker François Bugué.
The Hügelkultur term was first published by German gardener Herrman Andrä in 1962. The technique achieved worldwide recognition through Austrian permaculture pioneer Sepp Holzer, who adapted it for steep mountain landscapes much like those found at Smith-Madrone.
So how did Smith-Madrone arrive at this project? According to a PR release, the winery survived the 2020 Glass Fire as an island in a sea of incinerated forest. The winery’s 38 acres of vineyard are surrounded by forests on all sides. Those forests, consisting of hardwoods — oak, madrone, tan bark, bay trees — were virtually destroyed by the Glass Fire. Most of the Douglas firs on the property were also destroyed; those that survived were killed by a subsequent invasion of bark beetles.
In the ensuing years, said Stu Smith, only minor hand work was done in these forested areas, enough to keep poison oak under control. The vineyard crew assembled piles of branches and dead trees into burn piles — some tree trunks were as big as 3 to 5 feet — but this could only take place during the winter (i.e. when burning is permissible). The winery was looking at years of work to clear the debris.
“We had to figure out a way to somehow efficiently clean up the forest,” Smith said.
In late 2025, Natalie Reed of Fish Friendly Farming approached the winery with an idea that would also involve Will Johnson and the team at PCI Ecological, an ecological consulting and construction contractor based in Sonoma County.
The problem was how to clean up a dead forest and to handle that economically, considering it’s a steep site, angling up to 45% slopes, northeast-facing, well-drained, composed of red Aiken Stony Clay Loam soil. And, after that, regenerate it.
From this context came the novel idea of using the Hügelkultur technique, suggested by CLSI and PCI.
“Our challenge was to get rid of the fuel load,” Smith said. “In the summer we can’t burn but we can get heavy equipment on these steep slopes, which we can’t do in the winter.”
The Hügelkultur process started with defining a 14-acre section of the forest and then digging trench-shaped holes as wide as 6 feet and as deep as 5 feet, according to the release. The PCI crew operated an excavator that moved the wood and cut it into smaller pieces, which were then “buried” in these “grave sites.” The bigger material went first, in the bottom, and the smaller debris on top. The dirt that had been dug up was then piled back on top. It would act as an erosion control barrier and as a filter, allowing the wood to decay and release carbon into the soil. The wood buried in these mounds were hardwoods, primarily Douglas fir.
Johnson said that this was the first project where they used the modified Hügelkultur mounds, noting that “PCI has been designing and building restoration projects since 1985.”
PCI landscape architect Mike Jensen added, “One of the goals of the project was to combine stormwater protection with fuel reduction, and according to PCI Ecological, this was successful. Over the course of 1 ½ weeks, the PCI team built several sturdy Hügelkultur mounds and cleared and re-purposed a lot of woody debris, stabilizing with straw and wattles.”
Smith said that “this project is a great example of how complex farming in the mountains in Napa Valley is. I was honored to be chosen by PCI Ecological and the California Land Stewardship Institute to be the home for this work. This combined so many complicated variables — the forest, wildfire mitigation, wildlife, vineyards, steep slopes, forest boundaries and more.”
Smith-Madrone Winery is a pioneer of mountain farming as well as dry farming in the Napa Valley. Of numerous accolades accrued over the years, this past summer saw the winery’s 2021 Estate Chardonnay become a finalist in two different Judgement of Paris Tasting re-creations — one in New York, conducted by Patrick Cappiello, and the other at UC Davis, organized in conjunction with Harvard.
Two East Coast wineries — Waltz Vineyards Estate Winery from Manheim, Pennsylvania, and Meadowbrook Winery in Oldwick, New Jersey — were also finalists in the tasting at UC Davis.
The Smith-Madrone vineyard is located in the Spring Mountain District American Viticultural Area (AVA).
It’s known for its dry Riesling although it also makes Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Rosé and a proprietary prestige cuveé, Cook’s Flat Reserve.
The property had been planted to vineyard in the 19th century, although when Stu arrived, all that remained of the original vineyard were small redwood grape stakes and a towering allée of olive trees competing for sunlight with the 100-foot tall Douglas fir trees, according to the winery history.
In 1972, the brothers planted the first 20 acres (5 acres each of Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Riesling, Pinot Noir) on their own roots, which was unusual at the time.
Smith-Madrone’s first vintage of Riesling, the 1977, won Best Riesling in the Wine Olympics, an international tasting organized by the food and wine magazine Gault Millau in Paris in 1979.
The other partner in this project, California Land Stewardship Institute, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to planning and implementing environmental stewardship, restoration, and enhancement programs across private and public lands and waterways. Its work includes applied scientific studies, landscape scale stewardship, resource monitoring, and recommendation of best management practices. CLSI also operates the Fish Friendly Farming Environmental Certification Program and administers a range of conservation grant programs, working with agricultural producers and land managers to strengthen long-term soil and watershed health.
Prunuske Chatham, Inc. (PCI Ecological) is a full-service ecological consulting, restoration, and construction firm based in Sonoma County, California. For more than four decades, PCI has planned, designed, and implemented projects that protect and restore natural ecosystems while supporting the needs of local communities.
Jensen, PCI’s landscape architect, noted that while they have years of experience doing bioengineering projects using native materials and plants to stabilize slopes and streambanks, “this modified Hügelkultur technique for forestry application use is a first for us and was created for Smith-Madrone specifically. We’re already thinking about how to use this in other locations and how we might tweak the technique in the future with lessons learned.”
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