Z. Alexander Brown Pinot Noir Red Wine, California

The name on this bottle, Z. Alexander Brown Pinot Noir, California, settles two things at the outset: the grape and the state it grew in. Pinot Noir is a red grape with thin skins, poured as a still red like this one, and it also turns up in the blend of many traditional-method sparkling wines. Our September 2026 checks found it as low as $12.49. 7 shoppers have rated it so far.

Category guides put the grape around red cherry, berry and plum, lighter in color and softer in tannin than a Cabernet, which is the useful cue if you want a red that will not overwhelm a lighter dinner. The shoppers' average is 5, the top of the store's five-point scale and above the 4.71 median for everything we have scored. A second store in the same checks listed it at $16.99. Delicato Family Vineyards bottles this California Pinot under the Z. Alexander Brown label, launched in 2016 by Napa Valley winemaker John Killebrew and musician Zac Brown; for the taste, those guides describe a range, from bright and delicate to darker and fuller depending on where the grapes grew and how ripe they came in.

Z. Alexander Brown is a Delicato Family Vineyards label that Killebrew launched with Brown in January 2016; Pinot Noir joined the lineup after that first release of Cabernet Sauvignon and a red blend. The producer's own category page says this bottle draws fruit from three California counties at once: Sonoma for bright red fruit, Monterey for acidity and balance, and Napa for spice and concentration, then ages in French and American oak barrels with a second, malolactic fermentation that rounds out the wine's edges. Killebrew's own tasting note, quoted on the producer's site, calls it 'lush and layered' with 'intense aromas of black cherry, vanilla and toasty oak.'

Our call: a good pick if a named winemaker and a specific multi-county sourcing story are what you want behind a Pinot Noir at this price; Killebrew and Delicato Family Vineyards lay out exactly where the fruit comes from, and the 7 shoppers on record have pushed the average above the median for the wines we track. Pass if you want a single, narrower origin instead of a three-county blend; this bottle draws from Sonoma, Monterey and Napa at once rather than one vineyard or appellation.

The Grocery Store Wine Desk · written Sep 16, 2026 from our research file for this wine. Numbers reflect our latest checks.