Kosta Browne’s fabled pinot up for grabs at Sonoma Harvest Wine Auction

Dan Kosta and Michael Browne have created a classic cult pinot and a multi-million dollar brand from modest beginnings. In 1997, they started the company by pooling tips they earned as sommeliers. In April, a 10-case lot of their pinot noir raised a record $46,000 at a fundraising auction, or $383 a bottle.

Kosta Browne’s pinot will again be on the auction block this week as the company joins about 170 wineries that have contributed wine and other items for Sunday’s Sonoma Harvest Wine Auction at Chateau St. Jean in Kenwood, which caps Sonoma Wine Country Weekend.

Co-vintners Kosta, 44, and Browne, 48, credit the success of their boutique winery in Sebastopol’s Barlow on their commitment to relentless experimentation.

“Don’t be afraid to say, ‘I don’t know,’?” said Kosta. “We realize it might take five consecutive lifetimes to learn how to make wine, and you still won’t know everything. When you’re not afraid to say ‘I don’t know,’ that’s when the fun begins and the magic happens.”

In 2009, for example, they sold a majority stake in their company to Vincraft, a private equity group, for an estimated $40 million. In 2015, J.W. Childs Associates of Boston purchased the controlling stake in the winery from Vincraft for an undisclosed amount.

Kosta credits the winery’s new investors with helping to make the new vision a reality this year. Instead of buying the winery when their lease was up, they opted to invest their capital in a Mendocino vineyard and a lab in which to experiment with small lot fermentations. He describes it as a bold business decision by the entire Kosta Browne team to support furthering their craft.

This month, Kosta Browne purchased Anderson Valley’s Cerise Vineyards, its first outside of Sonoma County, with 64 acres mostly planted to pinot noir and chardonnay. And inside their winery, the vintners have created a 4,620-square-foot cellar with 20 concrete fermentation tanks, each weighing 13,000 pounds, that will hold grapes from their 20th harvest.

The tanks represent a substantial investment, with similar tanks priced at about $15,000, according to Steve Rosenblatt, owner of Sonoma Cast Stone in Petaluma. Setting up a cellar with 20 concrete tanks is “an outrageously large amount,” he said. “It’s very unusual. That’s an awful lot of concrete.”

Kosta explains it as an investment in the quality of the wine. Compared with more traditional oak or steel tanks, concrete tanks are known to give winemakers more control over temperature and impart a smoother texture and broader mouth feel to the wine as it touches the concrete.

“We’re not afraid to evolve with the times and try new things,” he said. “We’re completing our new cellar for harvest 2016 so we can become one of the most innovative and experimental winemaking facilities out there.”

Wine has been made with concrete tanks for centuries in Europe but the process fell out of favor 40 or 50 years ago, Rosenblatt said. European winemakers now produce 80 to 90 percent of their fine wine in concrete tanks, compared with about 40 percent in America.

“It always seems like what’s old in this industry becomes new again at some point,” said Nico Cueva, one of Kosta Browne’s winemakers. “We’ve always been open to looking at different ways of fermenting pinot and chardonnay, and have liked the characteristics that both open-top concrete and wood vessels give the wines. Overall, we’ve loved the mouth feel and the texture that these tanks have given our wines. They give the wine energy and some freshness that we like.”

Kosta Browne initially took the spotlight for its pinot prowess in 2011, when its 2009 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir won the Wine Spectator’s Wine of the Year designation.

That “overnight success” took eight years, Kosta jokes, adding it was tough in the beginning when both partners were juggling jobs. Kosta and Browne were working together at Santa Rosa’s John Ash restaurant when they scraped together $1,000 of tip money. With an additional $400 donated by a chef friend, they founded Kosta Browne but kept other jobs until the brand was on its feet.

Kosta brings the same determination and entrepreneurial spirit to his position as honorary chairman of the Sonoma Wine Country Weekend. He said he’s hoping to raise $5 million this year, up from last year’s take of $4.5 million, by reeling in those who have supported other notable auctions.

“If you look at other wine auctions throughout the country, collectively Sonoma County has helped raise a lot of money,” Kosta said. “We’re reaching out, trying to make this not so internal so that it’s sustainable for years to come.”

Changes are in store for next year’s auction that will help the event grow, he said. “It probably won’t be on Labor Day next year, which will be nice. I think it was a prohibitive factor for a lot of our guests to come out, particularly those with kids.”

Growth spurts seem to be the theme of the day, Kosta said. “The celebration when we’re successful at Kosta Browne has been very short. Then we ask ourselves what can we do better? And that’s what we’re doing with Wine Country Weekend, too.”