2019 Kosta Browne Pinot Noir Gap's Crown Vineyard Sonoma Coast 750 ml

Visit the cool, fog-encircled Gap’s Crown Vineyard during harvest and you’ll be standing among a collection of the region’s iconic producers. Yet Kosta Browne—who makes “some of California’s most in-demand wines,” according to Wine Spectator—has worked these loamy clay soils longer than almost anyone, and reigns as one of the site’s undisputed masters.

They began tending Gap’s Crown vines in 2006, before its meteoric rise to the pinnacle of Sonoma Pinot Noir. Since then, Gap’s Crown fruit has been the backbone of Kosta Browne Sonoma Coast bottles that landed at #1 and #4 on Spectator’s Top 100. 

This 2019 carries that torch of excellence. It’s a pure, deftly balanced expression of the site, crafted with the laser-focused attention to detail that inspired Jeb Dunnuck to call Kosta Browne’s Pinots “distinctive, singular wines up there with the crème de la crème of the region.”

It’s got the tension and energy we love about world-class Pinot Noir, with intoxicating aromas of blueberry, baking spice, and Damson plum. A sip shows fruit dynamism adorned with notes of lightly toasted cedar, orange peel, and moss-covered stone.

The Gap’s Crown Vineyard is the jewel of the ascendant Petaluma Gap AVA because no location better showcases the virtues of this 15-mile opening in the coastal mountain range: the vine-cleansing winds that keep grapes’ sugar in check and facilitate slow ripening, or the fog and cool temperatures that keep acid buzzing.

For this 2019, Kosta Browne’s team harvested the site in shifts over an entire month to collect Pinot grapes of varying ripeness, adding layers of complexity. They aged the wine for 15 months in 48% new French oak, giving its intricate flavors exceptional polish.