As an adult, the times I have burst into tears have been few and far between. Once was when my farther died. That was traumatic! The other time was this morning when the reality of what happened to our vineyard on Saturday afternoon eventually sank in! The freak hail storm, which hit at 4pm, showed no mercy or respect to years of hard work and dreams. In a flash, eighty percent of our crop was gone. 

Even now it is hard to believe what has happened. For the first time in eighteen years I don’t want to go to the vineyard, but there is a bright side to this devastating event, our team all turned up today, full of energy and ready to take on the fight. Our distributors are already planning on how to lift wine sales. Our friends and family have been amazing. Without them this situation would be impossible! 

It is hard to believe, but we are still very fortunate. Not all our vineyards were destroyed. Many of our growers were spared, meaning we have grapes to make wine for the 2022 vintage. Unfortunately, many of our winemaking customers will receive limited or no grapes from Ricca Terra from the vintage to come (some difficult conversations to come in the days ahead).

I know there will be a lot of learnings over the next year. How the vines recover? How we recover? And how we build a better business. It will be an interesting learning experience, an experience we plan to share in our weekly newsletters. I promise the messages will be about positive learnings. Who knows, our pain may actually be of benefit to someone someday.

Thanks for everyone’s ongoing support…..and we really need your support going forward.

Sign-up to Ricca Terra& enjoy 15% discount on your first order & receive $20 for your next purchase.