From our Cellar to your Holiday Table
Triptych of L’Ermite Rouge Single Barrel MonoClone® Pinot Noir
2016 – 2017 – 2018
and
Triptych of L’Ambroisie MonoClone® Pinot Noir
2016 – 2017 – 2018
plus
EVIL TWINS
Only Produced Once, Never Again
Soliste wines are crafted to enrich the experience of happy gatherings with your friends and family around the dinner table, creating long-lasting, joyous memories, especially during this upcoming holiday season. It is the opportunity to reminisce about our good fortunes, shared experiences, travels, and for all to break bread and share amazing food (and wine!) for the soul. For us at Soliste, it is the greatest gift of all.
As a Chef, Autumn is the magical season that brings us mushrooms, squash, root vegetables, wild game, squab, duck, oxtail, lamb shanks, rabbit, sweetbreads, cheeks, and of course truffles…Alba truffles.
Cooking in November and December requires very little encouragement. This is the time to get Le Creuset and Staub cocottes, Dutch ovens out. The art of braising comes down to us from the earliest days of cooking when ingredients were enclosed in a heavy pot and buried in the hot embers of a dying fire until tender and bathed in a deliciously concentrated sauce. Slow and long braising rustic traditional dishes for hours turn simple cuts of meats into extraordinary and magical culinary dishes. For all countries, braised dishes have defined their regional heritage and have held up to the test of time to still be the centerpiece of menus around the world. To name just a few, Italy has Osso Buco & Sugo; France has Coq au Vin, Beef Bourguignon, Cassoulet, Lamb Daube Provençale, & Blanquette de Veau; India has Vindaloo, Korma, & Biryani; Spain has Chilindron & Chivo Guisado; Mexico has Birria, Barbacoa en Maguey, Carnitas, & Pollo en Mole Poblano, just to name a few (hungry yet?). Braising and slow cooking is therapeutic because you cannot be in a rush and once the dish is in the oven for 5 to 7 hours you have very little to do other than wait for the alchemy to work its magic, converting your chosen cuts of meat or poultry and integrating with aromatics, wine, herbs, vegetables, and spices into a glorious confit of intense, succulent flavors mingled with now fork-tender piece de resistance.
This metamorphosis from a rustic beasty ingredient to an elevated complex beautiful dish is extraordinary just like the prehistoric crawling caterpillar becomes a remarkable winged colorful elegant butterfly.
Et Voila! The Beast has evolved and Beauty is revealed.
These dishes are the perfect pairing for deep red wines; wines of great concentration and focus, spices, but with the finesse associated with Soliste. It is the perfect symbiosis between the dish and the wine, not to overpower but to accompany it. Don and I have chosen these Pinot Noirs to create a vertical from our cellar to your holiday table. They are the perfect expression of each cépage and will adorn and complement your table this fall and winter. Since it takes quite some time to braise these marvelous dishes, you will have plenty of time to enjoy a glass or two (as we do) while the oven is doing its duty and you and your friends are held captive. Braising is the true “Slow Food Movement.”
Where it All Began
Our fascination with the great red Burgundies comes from the singular aromatics and complexities that are born in unique vineyards but a few kilometers apart. It is why we undertook the challenge and risk to focus on each specific clone of Pinot Noir that is best in harmony with each vineyard site – our Single Vineyard, Single Clone, and Single Cooperage wines – MonoClone®.
We talk about the legendary Burgundies because they are the benchmarks and what inspires and drives our madness. Our dream was simply to be in the conversation one day. Pinot Noir, for winemakers, is the ultimate challenge of all cépages. It is temperamental, fickle, thin skin grapes in small yielding clusters, very reactive to nano-weather variance (climate change), high-quality low yields are expensive to produce and harvest, and either fail to achieve their potential or are incredibly magnificent and complex, with peerless aromatics.
L’ERMITE ROUGE
L’ERMITE ROUGE is an ethereal wine that will challenge your senses. Our goals have always focused on being in the conversation with Great Burgundies and L’ERMITE ROUGE is of that brotherhood– anything else for us is simply not acceptable. Some may feel that it is presumptuous of us to even declare such ideas, others, closer to us hint it is just madness…obsession.
There are very few times one can feel truly lucky and privileged that their craft could stand along the very best. L’ERMITE ROUGE confirms all of our expectations and embodies our commitment and passion to craft compelling Pinot Noirs. L’ERMITE ROUGE originates from humble admiration of the dedication from the Cistercian monks of Abbaye de Cîteaux who created Clos De Vougeot over centuries. Who knows if we would be enjoying Burgundies today if not for a handful of Monks and Ermites.
Tasting Notes
2016 | 2017 | 2018 L’Ermite Rouge
L’Ambroisie
If L’Espérance is the most feminine, ethereal Pinot Noir that we produce, L’Ambroisie is the most masculine and enigmatic. Born from a legendary clone of great pedigree and situated on an amazing site in the middle of giant redwood trees. The wine density and concentration as well as its origins has created many debates and conversation around the tables of our friends. L’Ambroisie possesses all of the great qualities and is reminiscent of the great wines around Vosnes-Romanée.
Tasting Notes
2016 | 2017 | 2018 L’Ambroisie
EVIL TWINS
Welcome to our dark side – Single vineyard, from Two MonoClones, ONE barrel, never to be produced again. Evil Twins is the cumulative result of years of meticulous vineyard understanding, crafting a wine of extraordinary character and personality from Two Clones as different as we are, yet when assembled are simply magical. Boo!
Tasting Notes
In addition to the 2 Vertical sets, you may also select any of these wines a la carte in any combination you desire.
MonoClone® Pinot Noir
Why it is important…MonoClone explained
Because of the devastating event of the 1860 Phylloxera that destroyed the vineyards of Europe, it was especially critical in Burgundy, where Burgundians had to replant twice. First, with American rootstocks that came from the Ohio Valley and were resistant to Phylloxera, but died a few years later because the roots were not acclimated to the acidity of the limestone soil of Burgundy. Second, when they were replanted by rootstocks from Texas/Oklahoma that had resistance to Phylloxera and acidic soils. (a great read: “The Botanist and the Vintner: How Wine Was Saved for the World” by Christy Campbell). During the early days of the disease, winemakers were losing vast amounts of vineyards, they did not know the cause and as a survival method, they thought that the cure would come by grafting other clones (we’ll talk more about Pinot Noir clones below) and blending from multiple sources hence the term selection massale. This of course did not work and all of Burgundy was ravaged.
(read more about Pinot Noir Clones and how they survived)
Our November Release
For your holiday celebrations, we are offering two different sets of wines and our very unique Evil Twins Pinot Noir. We have updated our shopping cart system. Your information and history have been saved, but you may need to change your password. If you have any questions or challenges with the new site, please let us know.
| L’ERMITE ROUGE Single Barrel MonoClone Pinot Noir Vertical [Order ->] 2016 – 2017 – 2018 | $335 3 bottles, 1 of each wine Shipping Included |
| L’Ambroisie MonoClone Pinot Noir Vertical [Order ->] 2016 – 2017 – 2018 | 6 bottles, 2 of each wine Shipping Included |
| 2018 EVIL TWINS Pinot Noir [Order ->] We can’t separate Twins – sold only in Pairs! | $224 / pair Only 40 Twins available Shipping Included |
Each of these wines is also available a la carte. Please see the Pinot Noir collection of our online cellar.
À Votre Santé,
MonoClone® is a Registered Trademark of Soliste Cellars.
All Rights Reserved.