If you’re in our wine club Leon Circle, you know my feelings about Canterbury. It’s a profound terroir defined by limestone, imprinted on us years ago through our experiences with two wineries: the cult biodynamic winery Pyramid Valley (which we wrote about earlier this year), and the other is Theo Coles' The Hermit Ram.

When I first tasted the wines, to be completely honest, I had never experienced wines like these from New Zealand: creatively styled, natural (yet clean), and with ideas in the cellar that didn’t exist in the market.

In short: I was captivated. Bought everything we could (and even managed to put his cheeky skin-fermented Sauvignon Blanc in the club). Then, a jolt: the wines were sadly out of the NY market for a couple vintages – an absence keenly felt.

This benchmark producer is back with a new importer, and we're overjoyed to share more Canterbury with you.

THEO COLES

Theo is well traveled, and it shows. A stint of harvests in Europe in the early aughts brought him to Gigondas’ storied Château de Saint Cosme; a transformative place where he began to explore natural winemaking, and importantly, co-fermentation. What followed was a period of seeing what sticks: a winery project with his cousin, consulting for winemakers across New Zealand, importing Frank Cornelissen to the country.

In 2012 he found the thing that stuck: a truffle farm and tiny but densely planted Pinot Noir vineyard in Waipara Gorge, Gareth Renowden’s Limestone Hills.

The vines at Limestone Hills are densely planted, around 1K vines planted at about 7K vines/hectare. Photo via @thehermitram

“I stumbled across an etching of a large gnarly looking ram standing in a field during my travels. He was defiant, a little sauvage, had an old world charm and was very New Zealand..." – Theo Coles

Theo’s style, in short, is a pursuit of New Zealand-ness. Working with tiny sites dotted throughout Canterbury, all farmed organically, and low intervention “pre-technology” techniques, as he puts it, “to make certain that the story they tell is true.”

He’s using the methods he learned abroad – skin contact, co-fermentation, amphora, gentle extraction – to highlight the sites’ intensities, rather than buffing them away.

The result is an unapologetically direct expression of Canterbury.

CANTERBURY

For Theo’s work at Hermit Ram, it started with Pinot, and it especially started with limestone. It’s a soil type he pursues for acidity and salinity, which he considers far more important to the structure of his Pinot Noir than tannin or fruit.

The wines from his Pinot sites at Limestone Hills and Arden vineyard are, honestly, the opposite of fruit forward; what jumps out of the glass is uniquely forested, salty, a breath of fresh air.

This is what defines Canterbury, a place that should be at the top of any Pinot lover’s list of places to explore. The tiny appellation on New Zealand’s South Island has a magical ability to maintain freshness and energy in the face of what can be extreme warmth.

Its limestone soils (and as you can see here, boulders) breathe acidity into vines, keeping fruit delicate and aromatics bright.

Canterbury is also on an absolutely wind-battered, ocean-smashed section of the New Zealand coastline. The air is literally salty, underpinned by an earthy, kelp-y savoriness. Traditional estates in the area attempt to mute it; but the whites from Hermit Ram double down. The wines present just as they are: hewn by the power of the Pacific Ocean.

The results are distinct, and they are delicious.

THE WINES

2023 The Hermit Ram Sauv Blanc/Chard 'Salty White' $30
Theo lets a little flor develop on top of whole-cluster pressed Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay. A salty, oxygen influenced ode-to-Jura flavor profile that speaks to his roots learning about blending in Gigondas.

2023 The Hermit Ram 'Dead Flowers' $30
An aromatic, spicy single vineyard wine of Gewürztraminer that's been directly pressed onto the whole berries of Pinot Noir and Gewürztraminer. A proper lip-smacking co-ferment.

2023 The Hermit Ram Pinot Noir 'Pinots' $33
An exploration of North Canterbury Pinot Noir treated three different ways: 1/3 direct press from a late, ripe site; 1/3 direct press from an early picked site; 1/3 fully fermented on the skins. The result is a juicy, open Pinot Noir meant to be drunk with verve.

2022 The Hermit Ram Chardonnay 'Urchins' $42
From a single gravel & limestone vineyard; Chardonnay is foot crushed and left to soak overnight then pressed into tank. Fermentation is in stainless and afterwards the wine is moved to 500L puncheons. Bottled unfiltered with 5ppm of SO2. As the importer notes, this is a "very emotional wine" – steeped with the aromatic influences of New Zealand's coast.

2020 The Hermit Ram Pinot Noir 'Shells' $50
Theo considers this the finest pinot he made to date. All off limestone soils with 7.8 ph soils, which adds considerable freshness to this warm vintage. The fruit was treated very gently during fermentation; given an extra month post-fermentation to develop fine tannins before pressing. Aged in old barrique 18 months before bottling. A saline, truffle-flecked wine that is the essence of his Waipara fruit.

SHOP THE HERMIT RAM