Buying a dead cherry patch in South Australia's Riverland and converting it into a vineyard, may not sound like the best career move. However, for Ricca Terra Wines , bold decisions like that have dominated their winemaking journey.
First-generation farmer, Ashley Ratcliff, has now been making wine for two decades.
Ricca Terra Wines (meaning 'rich earth' in Italian) has found the key to success with carefully selected grape varieties, innovative low alcohol options and in a surprise, even to himself, cask wine. Ashley has a refreshingly positive attitude to business and has generously spoken about the key to his success.
Ashely now calls the Riverland home, but he was originally from the Barossa.
Many in the industry find his decision to move a surprising one.
"I found my way into the Riverland purely on the basis of, I couldn't afford a vineyard in the Barossa!" he recalls.
Ashley started with a small patch of about 20 acres and steadily built upon that. One of his more recent acquisitions was a dead cherry patch, purchased three years ago.
After bulldozing it, Ashley was able to plant and harvest grapes within the first year.
"The good thing about the Riverland is it's got really good temperature, really good soils, and we've got really good quality water," Ashley explains.
He says with those natural ingredients plus some good organic cattle manure, you can get the growing happening rapidly.
I looked at how we could be different. So, we went with a lot of Italian, Portuguese and Spanish varieties and started to plant them."
Ashley is proud of his decision to farm in the Riverland and believes it is one of the best growing regions in the world. It's hot and it's dry.
Rainfall during recent droughts has amounted to just 90mm a year. That low humidity lends itself to less disease, and therefore fewer inputs.
We're here to prove people wrong in regards to making premium wines out of the Riverland."
Ricca Terra has excelled at making a low-alcohol rose. It's something Ashley felt the market wanted. He's managed to get the alcohol content down to 7%. He noticed plenty of beers hitting that mark, but not wines.
"The reason we went with rose is because rose is a style that's very fresh. People put ice in their rose. You drink it in a different way that you would a white or red."
In a move that's surprised even himself, Ricca Terra has also broken into the cask wine market. It's something he promised he'd never do.
"The good thing about our business, and I guess that's in our DNA, we'll just try something and see how it goes."
Ashley's rules around casks are, it has to be their best wine, they do their own filling to ensure they can manage shelf life, and they are working towards fully recyclable packaging.
We're getting three bottles into one package. That's a massive advantage and a massive saving."
Ricca Terra has won many accolades but one that Ashley is most proud of is last year being named in the Top 100 Wineries of Australia.
"To my knowledge, there hasn't been a Riverland winery that's achieved that," he says.
There's no doubt Ashley works hard but there's something about his immense success, even during difficult periods of weather or global trade challenges. He puts it down to a philosophy called 'Appreciative Inquiry' which is focussing on what you do well rather than looking for problems in the world.
When it's a sea of bad news, it's like a sea of black balloons. The easy way to stand out is to be the single yellow balloon."
Ashley says by talking about things that are positive, all of a sudden, people started gravitating towards them, seeking out that different story. My saying is, "You can't sell a wine with a whinge!".
He's selling it with a lot more than that. And if there's one thing he'd like the public to take away, it's that the Riverland doesn't just do cheap and cheerful.
Although you can certainly count on his attitude to be cheerful - every time.
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