2017 Kosta Browne Pinot Noir Russian River Valley 750 ml

Today we're thrilled to announce our first-ever allocation: Pinot Noir from the Sonoma County producer synonymous with cult Burgundy varieties on the West Coast. 

Kosta Browne’s bread and butter, of course, is Pinot Noir, and it’s as great as ever. The 94-point 2017 Russian River Pinot offers tons of Kosta Browne’s trademark lush fruit—raspberries and red cherries accented with cola and tilled earth, with beautiful supporting acid structure and perfect notes of mulled spice after 17 months in 45% new oak. 

Obviously we're thrilled to tell you about this allocation. We're less excited to tell you how limited it is: A skilled delivery guy could probably move the whole thing with a couple of trips with a hand truck. We’ve got our white gloves on (figuratively), but there won’t be close to enough to go around. So don’t hesitate—this might be the only time that waiting is not a part of the Kosta Browne experience.

Here’s the short history of Kosta Browne: From ten bucks a night to thousands on the waiting list.

Hatched by Dan Kosta and Michael Browne while they were working at Sonoma County restaurant John Ash—and when neither had experience making wine—the pair started by putting $10 each in an envelope on nights they worked together. After a few months, they had a thousand dollars, and after one of the restaurant’s chefs ponied up $400 more, they set off to buy grapes and gear. 

Their first grapes came from Russian River and sapped most of their funds. The rest of the money they used to buy two things they didn’t want to borrow: a used barrel and a hand-cranked destemmer/crusher. Their first effort yielded one barrel (just 24 cases) of Pinot, which they poured for VIPs at John Ash.

Over the next five years, they persevered, scouring Northern California for grapes and capital. Their huge breakthrough came in 2005 when Wine Spectator crowned two of their 2003 Pinots with 95-point scores and named the Sonoma Coast bottling the #11 wine on their king-making Top 100 list. Almost overnight, the challenge changed from keeping afloat to keeping up with demand.

Kosta Browne climbed Spectator’s Top 100 rankings: The Russian River took #7 in 2006, and the Sonoma Coast landed at #4 in ’09 and claimed the top spot in 2011. And the demand? The queue to get on their mailing list is now endless. You might have a better shot at Packers season tickets. But you’ve got no need to sign up if you’re one of the Wine Access members who takes advantage of this special offer.