Would Brewers From Sonoma Know Latin?

Well, as a general rule, you wouldn't think so.  But they'd sure know hops and barley, malt and yeast.

So why would you assume they'd know how to rightly pronounce 'Pliny', the shared name of a pair of upstanding, first century Roman citizens, important authors, men of letters?

Pliny the Elder was an attorney, statesman, friend of the emperor and mentor to his nephew, Pliny the Younger, an honest pursuer of suspected Christians. Caveat Christianus!

In first century C.E. Latin, as well as in the earlier, Classical Period Latin, the long 'i' sound was written 'ae', as in 'algae'.  That's right, 'AL-GUY', not 'AL-JEE'.  The Latin 'i' was always pronounced as a short 'i' as in the word 'did', not the long 'i' sound as in the word 'pine'.  Unless you dig déclassé.

It's common to pronounce algae as 'AL-JEE' in Americanish, but Pliny is a proper noun, not a photosynthesizing infester of pools and lakes noun.

I've heard the spurious argument that the honorable Sonoma County, California brewers of the deliciously hoppy Pliny the Elder and Younger ales have official dibs on the pronunciation of Pliny's eponymous product. Rubbish. Only the ignorant or deliberately déclassé hold to this.

Should we follow suit were the makers of Mozart chocolates to pronounce their product's name 'Moze-Art'? Should we also perhaps pronounce the name of that prolific Baroque composer from Leipzig, 'Batch'?

One more thing.  You're not one of those who think that the Renaissance polymath, painter, sculptor, scientist, genius Leonardo bore the last name of 'da Vinci'. are you?

He didn't.  That's where he's FROM.