WineInk: Dan Kosta convenes in Aspen

One of the best things about living in a wine town like Aspen is that many of the world’s top producers find their way here. Whether it is for the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, wine dinners at our top shelf restaurants, or just to ski, wine professionals, like the rest of us, like to be in Aspen.

Such was the case this past week when Dan Kosta, a frequent visitor to our mountain ‘hood, held court on the patio of The Wild Fig, pouring wines from his Sonoma, California, based DK Wine Group portfolio. He was joined on the hot and sunny July afternoon by the bow-tied Scott Hornick and Kevin Furtado, his distributors with CS Wine Distribution, as part of a Colorado wine tour.

Three years ago, Kosta launched DK Wine, creating a wine company that presents consumers three different tiers of wines with an emphasis on pinot noir and chardonnay. Admire is an approachable level of pinot noir selling in the $30 range, with grapes grown exclusively in the Sonoma Coast appellation. Convene is a collection of premium wines that are blends from the Sonoma Coast and the Russian River Valley appellations. And Grail is the top tier featuring single vineyard releases from Steve Campbell’s Campbell Ranch in Sonoma and Gary and Rosella’s vineyards in the Santa Lucia Highlands.

“These wines represent a little more of how my palate has changed over the years,” Kosta said about the newest releases of the wines. “When I was younger, the wines were a little more opulent. Now I’m more interested in an intellectual approach; I want to make wines that are more complex and nuanced.”

“God, I love it here,” he said with obvious satisfaction about being back in Aspen as he poured a glass of his most recent release of the Convene Rosé. He also comes each winter as a part of the “Pinot Posse” collection of West Coast pinot noir producers who hold an annual dinner at Free Range Kitchen in Basalt. “I’ve been coming to Aspen and Vail for years. Kevin and I go back over 20 years when I was bringing Kosta Browne to Vail and he was at the Larkspur restaurant with chef Thomas Salamunovich.” Yes, his Rocky Mountain bona fides are impeccable.

If you know Kosta, you are inevitably a fan, as he is one of the nicest guys in the wine business. If you don’t know him, you may still have a connection to him if you have ever enjoyed the wines of Kosta Browne, his first Sonoma wine project. In one of the great rags to riches wine stories, he had an epic beginning to his wine career.

As legend has it, shortly before the turn of the century, Kosta, a Sonoma native, was working the floor for tips as a sommelier at John Ash and Co., an acclaimed restaurant and wine hangout in Santa Rosa, along with fellow wine lover Michael Browne. The two decided to pool their tips and make a little wine. With a somewhat meager investment (rumored to be around $2,600), they purchased a half ton of pinot noir grapes along with a hand crank crusher and a used barrel. 

In 1997, under their eponymous moniker, Kosta and Browne launched their brand: “We thought our wines were pretty good and got a break when James Laube from Wine Spectator was the first journalist to really write about us.” Laube, who gave their 2003 vintage pinot noir from Kanzler Vineyard a rating of 96 points, passed away this spring.

In 2011, the Kosta Browne 2009 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir received recognition by Wine Spectator as the #1 wine of the year. Shortly after, they sold the majority control of the venture for a reported $40 million to Vincraft. An epic debut indeed. The Kosta Browne brand has been through a number of sales since and is now owned by the Duckhorn Wine Company. While Kosta and Browne are no longer affiliated with the wines, their names live on, on the bottles.

While that windfall could have been the beginning of a healthy retirement for Kosta, he decided to stay in the wine game and took a more personal path along the wine road.

“My dad is a wine lover (He once owned a wine shop in Santa Rosa), and I love it when he can drink wines I make,” he said while smiling over lunch at the Fig. Hence, the launch of the DK Wine Group and Convene.

When you think of a winery, the image of a tasting room and production facility with steel tanks and a barrel room nestled amongst the vineyards likely comes to mind. But DK Wine Group uses a different business model, one that provides Kosta with flexibility and the opportunity to produce the best possible expressions of his wines.  

Instead of owning vineyards, he sources his grapes from renowned vineyards on the California Coast. He has formed relationships with growers who he can count on to consistently coax the best from their vines. Instead of purchasing a dedicated winery building, he and his longtime winemaker Shane Finley make the wines at a custom crush facility. And their tasting room is in Healdsburg in Sonoma County in a beautiful facility called Bacchus Landing. 

“I love going to the tasting room,” says Kosta. “We get such great people coming in to try the wines.”

The wines under the Convene label are available via a mailing list and to members of the wine club. The website, dk-convene.com, is the best place to visit and start a relationship with Convene.

We’ll look forward to Kosta’s next journey to Aspen.