Description
RICCA TERRA
Ashley moved to Australia from England as a young child. He has always had an affinity with the land, growing up on a farm in the Adelaide Hills. Holly also enjoyed the wide open spaces, living on forest reserves through her childhood. While Ashley and Holly have a strong connection with the land that is Ricca Terra, they know they are custodians for only a period of time. The traditional owners were the Barmerara Meru clan of the Ngawadj people.
Ricca Terra is located close to the township of Barmera, South Australia, which means “water place” or “land dwellers”. The soils throughout the region range from sandy loam to red earth over limestone (traditional terra rossa soil). The words Ricca Terra translates to rich earth in Italian, which describes the soils in the Barmera region.
Ricca Terra is made up of ten individual vineyards, all of which were established during the solider settlement scheme (the soldier settlement scheme was an Australian Government program that provided small plots of land between six to ten hectares) to soldiers that returned from the first and second World Wars.
Today, Ricca Terra is made up of a patchwork of grapes varieties. While French varieties once dominated, they are being replaced with grape varieties that originate from northern hemisphere regions, such as Sicily, Spain & Portugal which have similar growing conditions to the Riverland. Varieties such as Nero d’Avola, Vermentino, Fiano, Touriga Nacional and many others now find themselves at home at Ricca Terra.
