Journey to Concannon

What can best pull a man and his brother up a mountain and across 50 miles of terrain, racing the fall of night and the fatigue of flesh? Wine, of course, and the promise of a three-course gourmet meal - and so it was that my brother, Andrew, and I arrived last week at Concannon Vineyard for an eating and tasting event at the ancient Livermore location.

We robbed a roadside Fuyu persimmon tree north of Mount Diablo and a Mission fig tree just to the south (if you regularly ride this peak, you may know the trees, their branches dangling over the fences and, well, darn well asking to be ravaged) but still, hunger nearly killed us. Our muscles still functioned, but we were simply out of gas by the time we reached the quiet suburbs just a mile north of the winery gate. Here, as dusk fell, we looked desperately for a phone booth but found none (what would Superman do in the era of cell phones) and wound up changing clothes on a residential front lawn, and we arrived at the winery looking just dandy on the outside - but inside, unbeknownst to the diners milling in the lobby, we were 3000 calories in the hole. We drained pours of Concannon's staple Petite Sirah like it was water - not a black juice so thick it will turn your teeth blue with a glass.


Then we ate - and here I furnish a warning: Never count on a fine dining evening to sate you after 50 miles of pedaling. That's just what we did, forgetting that top notch chefs aren't there to provide calories but to provide experience and flavor. We gravitated to the appetizer table and slurped down the fantastic Alaskan halibut ceviche. It came by the spoonful, though we were in more of a mood for ladles full. What could we do? We refilled on the Petite - twice - and by dinnertime we were each down just 2500 calories. Salad was waiting for us as we sat in the barrel room and heard Joe Concannon and his father, Jim, deliver speeches commemorating 129 years of winemaking - a history that includes survival of Prohibition and of the encroachment of suburbia. We began with a delicate and beautiful romaine heart concoction, draped with grilled bell peppers and mushrooms. Paired to a half pour of Sauvignon Blanc, the course provided another 100 calories for our depleted bodies and limbs. We were starving.

Next arrived the seared duck on a bed of red quinoa - and, oh, how we could have used four times the portions of that wonderful super-starch! For we were hungrier than 10 Incans fresh off the slopes of Aconcagua. The meal proceeded at the expected and appropriate pace - for fine diners. But for two boneheads who forgot to pack almonds and dates on a 50-mile mountain ride, the minutes between courses felt like days. At last, the New York steak and fried potatoes arrived, and we meanwhile drank, poured and drank again the big reds - the Grenache and the hallowed "mothervine" Cabernet Sauvignon, the latter made from a row of estate vines from which Cab clones number 7 and 8 were originally cut and propagated almost ubiquitously throughout California in the 1970s and 1980s.

But it was dessert that saved us, a rich chocolate tart the size of an Olympic discus, and with it came the calories we needed. Refreshed, we returned to the wines for a rerun through these classics of Concannon, and, yes: Our teeth turned blue.