Wine Geese
The rocks of Concannon Vineyard
tell a tale rich in history
of a fiercely determined Aran man who planted
the first vines in the rocky soil of Livermore Valley in 1883, establishing
one of California's oldest wineries.
The Concannon
clan dates back about a thousand years in Ireland. James Concannon was born on St. Patrick's
Day in 1847 on Inishman Island (or Inis Meain.) James traveled to California where he became
the first Irish vintner to take advantage of California's unparalleled potential.
With his vision for a winery in place, he moved his family from
San Francisco to Livermore Valley where the rocky soil and rich terroir
reminded him of France's premier winemaking regions. With its idyllic
Central Coast climate, Livermore's grapes flourish in warm days and
nights cooled by winds from the San Francisco Bay.
Concannon has a history of firsts. Its austere vineyards produced
the world's first Petite Sirah from the 1961 vintage. Its innovation
pioneered the creation of the widely adopted Cabernet Sauvignon Clones
7 and 8, securing Concannon Vineyard's prominent place in the annals of
California viticulture and planting most of Napa's Cabernet vineyards.
And its eye for winemaking talent discovered America's first female
winemaker, a Hungarian ballerina named Katherine Vajda. Today,
Concannon Vineyard is a historical California landmark and a producer of
award-winning wines enjoyed across the world.
Shortly after the 1849 Gold Rush, family patriarch James Concannon emigrated from Inis Meain, the middle of the three Aran Islands in Galway Bay to Boston. In 1875, James moved to San Francisco. He acquired the West Coast franchise for rubber stamps, and did very well with this business. By 1883, James Concannon had also begun to grow grapes in Livermore Valley, and this is where his family has been ever since. Following his death in 1911, his sons Joseph, Thomas, and Robert continued the family business. Tom graduated from Santa Clara College with a degree in chemistry, and became Concannon's winemaker. Eventually, James' son Joseph and Joseph's wife Nina purchased all interests in the winery from his brothers and sisters. As sole proprietors, they continued the business until Joseph's death in 1965. As part of the family's legacy, Concannon Vineyard is a founding member of the Wine Institute and is a charter member of PS I Love You, the advocacy group for Petite Sirah.
Jim Concannon
Meanwhile, Jim Concannon (grandson of James Concannon) was busy studying business and accounting at Saint Mary's College of California in Moraga. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in business administration in 1953, and then spent two years in the U.S. Army as an infantryman, but was spared combat when the Korean War finally ended. "When I got out, I took the chemistry short-courses at U.C. Davis for seven months, and then came home to work at the winery. Dad was ready to retire, so Joe suggested that the two of us take over, with me running production and Joe handling sales and finance. In all the time that we had the winery, we never had an argument. We grew up tossing a baseball or football to one another, and always found it easy to work together."
Jim Concannon is a "gentleman of the old school." He is, to be sure, a man whose religion and Catholic education gave him a compassionate world viewpoint, one that rails against prejudices from race to religion and all points in between. He is also the scion of an ancient (by American wine standards) wine family, a family that gave California its first Irish wine estate and its first female winemaker, Hungarian born ballerina Katherine Vajda, who was the first technically trained woman winemaker in American viticultural history. According to Jim, "I was always deeply inspired by my Uncle Tom. Then, working with Katherine was an exceptional opportunity to learn from one of the most talented people in the busi-ness. Between Katherine and my uncle, I was so enthused that I decided to become a winemaker, which is why I took classes at U.C. Davis to sharpen those skills."
Inheriting the winery in 1965, grandsons Joseph S. Concannon, Jr. and James J.
Concannon continued managing all aspects of the winery. As an early accomplishment in 1964, the Concannon brothers released the industry's first varietally labeled Petite Sirah from their 1961 vintage. "We were very fortunate that my father chose not to pull out the Petite Sirah and the Sauvignon Blanc during Prohibition. A lot of growers did pull the shy-bearing wine grapes in favor of the bigger-berried table grapes, to make more money off of the home winemakers. But dad kept the better varieties. I think he knew that the nonsense [Prohibition] had to come to an end at some point. Perhaps it was a matter of faith. "Heck, I still work seven-day weeks some of the time, and recently was involved in
signing bottles and meeting the public for forty days straight! This is a people business, and I just love interacting with our customers. And I always enjoyed working with the other old wine families: Louis Martini, Andre Tchelistcheff, Joe Heitz, John Parducci, the Pedroncellis, and the Wentes. These were people who were always on hand to help one another. Between the second generation Wentes and the Concannons there were eighteen kids walking to school together. They were almost half the school! These were all down-to-earth people, devoted to their families, and always folks you could have a good time with. Remember, these were people who managed to work their way through the fifties and sixties, when it was a real challenge to sell wine."
Actually, the greater challenge came to Concannon in the twenties, when Prohibition was
the law of the land. "It's true," says Jim. "My father had to work with Archbishop Mitty to insure that our wines would be available as altar wine, sacramental wine, to the Catholic churches of the Bay Area. My father also sold to the Lutherans and Episcopalians. His ecumenical approach to life certainly stood him in good stead through the difficult times of Prohibition. The Jesuits, Beaulieu, Beringer, Sebastiani, and The Christian Brothers also stayed open during that period. I know we were blessed to have good stocks of table wines on hand when Prohibition finally ended in December of 1933." Jim was just two when the Great Experiment came to an inglorious
end, that end promoted avidly by President-elect Roosevelt.
"My father never pushed my brother or me into the business," muses Concannon. "But
you have to remember that we lived out in the country, and I had chores to do. At 12, I can remember taking water out to our grape pickers, working in the hundred degree heat. At 13, I was helping my uncle Thomas in the lab. James was a full-blown chemist out of Santa Clara University, and an avid rugby player. My brother Joe went to Notre Dame at a time when their football team won 44 straight. He never saw his college team lose a game in his four years there. I went to Saint Mary's, in nearby Moraga, and our football team held Georgia to a tie! Of course, we had John Henry Johnson [later with the San Francisco 49ers] in our backfield, and he ran back the opening kickoff for a ninety-yard touchdown."
Jim Concannon was inducted as a Chevalier in "The Society of the Wine Geese" in 1997
when Ireland's first Wine Museum opened in Desmond Castle in Kinsale. The Wild Geese is the term originally given to those who fled Ireland in the 1600s, but Irish wine historian Ted Murphy decided they would be more accurately served by being called Wine Geese. Desmond Castle, once the custom house, was designated as one of the licensed ports in the 1569 Act to import wines from around the world. It therefore is the proper location for The Wine Geese Society A Concannon Methuselah of Petite Sirah and historical information on Grandfather James Concannon is part of the museum memorabilia. A similar bottle was the one President Reagan gifted as "America's gift" on his visit to grandfather's homeland.
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