Concannon's Conservancy Tier Wines: Así Así

A few years back when I worked for a monstrously large winery, I refused to live in the factory town in which it was headquartered. Perhaps it was fact that two women from the town were sadly murdered in very public, national incidents, or maybe it was the alarming number of meth addicts, or possibly it was the tallow plant which coughed out the most vomitanous smell in the entire world, but any way you slice it, I wasn't doing it.

What was my other option? Living near the Livermore Valley -- a 55 minute commute and right in the neighborhood of wine country. So when Concannon Winery, one of the oldest wineries in this valley, recently sent me some samples of their new Conservancy Wines, I was happily nostalgic for times that MC Ice and I tasted wines locally and hit some of the 40 or so wineries in Livermore.

Livermore Valley, about 50 minutes east of San Fran, has produced wine since the late 1800s. It's inland, but it still gets coastal fog and cool breezes from the San Fran Bay so although it's hot during the day, the cooler nights allow the fruit to gather up a little acid and actually have something going on besides overripe apples and wood. The valley boasts the distinction of being home to the first California wine to win a French competition, taking the prize at the 1889 Paris Exposition (World Fair).

After effectively being closed down due to Prohibition, Livermore Valley sprang back and had as many vineyards as Napa in the 1960s, but I guess it lacked the moxy or the quality or both to get the street cred it needed to be a "hot" area. It's a relatively small region -- Wente, who I've reviewed before, makes 300,000 cases of wine and is the giant of the area (to put this into perspective, I managed a smaller brand for the monstrous winery and it sold around 300,000 cases per year). Concannon is the second largest, but with just 30,000 cases a year.

Concannon has been around since 1884 and survived prohibition by making wine for the church. Petite Sirah is what it's know for, having introduced the first varietally labeled one to the market in 1961. James Concannon is the fourth generation winemaker, and still works with his father to ensure consistency in the wine.

The wine was sent my way because it's part of a new Conservancy Tier. This means that the winery realized that suburban sprawl was taking over the Livermore Valley, so it set aside some land to protect it from home builders. The fruit for the wine is sourced 100% from Livermore Valley vineyards.

The web site boasts that the winery is sustainable and part of the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance, which, although I respect Concannon, I have to say is a bunch of hooey made up by big wine companies so they can get a marketing bounce for using the word "sustainable" but do very little for the environment (let's just say that the world's 2 biggest wineries are on the board of this organization and criteria like shutting off lights when you leave a room count towards your score, and I don't think there are consequences for dumping in the rivers or polluting streams). I'm not impressed, but I'm also kind of a green advocate, so take it as you will.

Regardless of this last comment, I do love the Concannon story and I like the winery, but I'm kind of lukewarm on the wines I received, as you'll see. Here's the skinny on both:

Wine 1: Concannon Conservancy Chardonnay
Where It's From: Livermore Valley
The Grapes: 100% Chardonnay
Vintage: 2008
Price: $15.00

Color: California Chardonnay rarely strays from form on the color -- it's golden yellow and shiny and bright. Why? Because the oak tannins darken up the color of the juice from straw-colored to that rich yellow. You just know you're going to be plucking a proverbial splinter or two from your gums from all the oak.

Smell: This wine was very typical of Cali Chardonnay -- bright red and green apple and ripe, juicy, dripping pear nectar oozed from the glass. A second sniff and we're in some Caribbean town, smelling a guava, papaya, and pineapple fruit salad. And then the two by four -- big oak, chemical and paint, mineral, and caramel smells abounded. Not unpleasant, but not surprising either. It's what I find kind of typical of a wine from this area.

Taste: Interestingly, the wine tasted a lot more like lemon and lime than the tropical fruit that it smelled of. It was pretty fresh-tasting and seemed like it had high acid (although the wine note shows that it's moderate acid, so I'm not sure why it was so clean). But there was literally an oak tree and stick of butter living together in this bottle, waiting to be uncorked. That said, the wine wasn't that heavy -- it's an interesting one for sure.

Food: Some sort of light meat in an herb sauce or heavy fish, or heavy vegetarian dish with a cream sauce, or potatoes or cheese is the way to go with this. Because the wine is pretty flavorful, I'd say your best pairing is complementary, not contrasting -- this would drown out a light acidic sauce in a heartbeat.

Drink or Down the Sink?: I don't usually prefer big, oaky wines, but this was ok. I liked the lemony, herby qualities of the wine and found they offset the overt creamy, oakiness. Would it be my first choice in Chardonnay? Probably not, but it's certainly at the top of the list when it comes to $15 California Chardonnay because it's not the typical profile.


Wine 2: Concannon Conservancy Petite Sirah
If you're not familiar with Petite Sirah, generally it's a dark, acidic, full, and tannic grape that's fruit forward. It’s related to true Syrah from the Rhône Valley of Southern France, and is the love child of this grape and another more obscure variety (Peloursin). Although originally from France, it's frowned on there (where it's called Durif) and it really has found a home in Cali, where it smells and tastes like fresh herbs, black pepper, plum, and blueberry. Compared to Syrah, it is less complex, and fruitier.

Where It's From: Livermore Valley
The Grapes: 97% Petite Sirah, 3% Petit Verdot
Vintage: 2007
Price: $15.00

Color: This is a dark daddy of a wine. It was almost opaque in color -- a deep, dark ruby -- inky. There were heavy, stained tears running down the glass showing that this was a wine of high alcohol (13.5% is pretty high). I expected big things -- when a wine has that much pigment, flavor usually follows. Optimism for good tastes by the looks of it.

Smell: A pretty complex smell wafted out of this glass -- black pepper, wet earth, mocha, and vanilla came first. Then there were some sweet smells of black plum, blackberry, cinnamon, and tobacco leaves. It was a nice nose, but a little bit of a cilia singer -- the alcohol went right up my snout and nearly made me sneeze (or maybe that was the black pepper? I kid, it's the alcohol).

Taste: Urgh. I had such high hopes. Why didn't this deliver? Orange sherbet came to mind first, them plum, dark flowers/rose petal, black tea, and a little bit of clove. The wine was creamy and had moderate tannins. It all sounds great, but there was just something missing: POWER. I expect Petite Sirah to have a certain brawn, and this one was watered down. There wasn't the brash, unapologetic flavors I want out of this wine. Even if I suspended what I knew about Petite Sirah, I would still find this wine slightly flat. I've had Concannon's Petite Sirah (not the Conservancy line, obviously, since this is new) and it's got might behind it. This one -- just too light bodied and not enough gusto to make the cut for me.

Food: Normally, I'd say grilled meats with Petite Sirah, but for this, you may want to do roasted chicken, or salmon, or veggie kabobs.

Drink or Down the Sink?: I didn't pour it down the sink, but I didn't savor this one either. It was a real snoozer.

Although I applaud the efforts of the Concannon family for trying to preserve land and use it for traditional farming (and I appreciate them for sending me the wine), I hope that future vintages have a little more finesse to them. This winery knows Petite Sirah, so there's no reason they won't get it right. But I'll have to wait until the next vintage to see...