The Kosta Browne story is one of California wine's great underdog narratives. In 1997, Dan Kosta and Michael Browne, colleagues at John Ash & Co. restaurant in Santa Rosa, pooled their tips to buy their first Pinot Noir grapes. They worked nights restaurant shifts and made wine during the day in a small Sebastopol facility, building a mailing list one bottle at a time. By the mid-2000s the wines had become benchmarks for richly expressive, fruit-forward California Pinot Noir, racking up 100-point Wine Spectator scores and a years-long waiting list. The label specialized in single-vineyard bottlings from Sonoma Coast, Russian River, and Santa Lucia Highlands.
Russian River Valley Pinot Noir: the appellation flagship; lush, layered, and the wine that built the cult following.
Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir: a multi-vineyard blend expressing the cooler, wind-swept coast.
Gap's Crown Vineyard Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast: a single-vineyard bottling from the iconic Petaluma Gap site.
4-Barrel Pinot Noir: the most limited wine in the house, blended each year from just four standout barrels as a members' thank-you.
Russian River Valley Chardonnay: the cool-climate white that complements the Pinot program.
In 2018 Duckhorn Wine Company acquired Kosta Browne, bringing the brand into a larger luxury wine portfolio. Winemaker Julien Howsepian continues the single-vineyard Pinot Noir tradition. The Sebastopol winery and tasting room, at 220 Morris Street in the Barlow marketplace, welcomes guests by appointment only for private reserve tastings, behind-the-scenes tours and cellar flights, with allocation-list members receiving priority on a rotating set of single-vineyard wines including the One Sixteen, 4-Barrel, and Sonoma Coast bottlings. The list remains famously oversubscribed.
