Benefits of Time
A complete vertical of Kosta Browne Pinot Noirs
Posted: Nov 16, 2011 10:00am ET
Kosta Browne may have quietly stumbled out of the starting gate. But it has provided an amazingly steady stream of excellent Pinot Noirs ever since.
Founders Dan Kosta and Michael Browne have also been at the forefront of a movement that has staked out new territory with Pinot Noir. It's a fruit-driven style that emphasizes ripe, opulent berry flavors with a measure of elegance, detail and finesse. Few wineries in California have enjoyed such dramatic success inside a decade. Few too have shown such a deft hand with Pinot Noir, which is all the more surprising considering neither of the principals had any winemaking training or experience prior to this.
Since 2002, the winery's third vintage with Pinot Noir, KB has produced 69 Pinots, with this rather striking statistic: All but one have earned 90 points or higher, and 24 have earned ratings of 95 points or higher. No other California Pinot producer comes close to matching those figures. Here are my tasting notes on their Pinot Noirs going back to 2000.
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