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In keeping with the winery’s focus on Mediterranean grape varieties, Avivo White is 100% Vermentino—a grape whose true home is the island of Sardinia but has lately spread to Provence, the New World, and other parts of Italy. This aromatic delight lifts the nose with scents of lemon verbena, white peach, and sea spray, and refreshes the palate with crisp acidity and a silky texture. The wine’s complexity and quality begin in the Leadbetter family’s River’s Edge Vineyard, which features blocks in both well-drained rocky soils and sandy, alluvial soils. The grapes are 100% certified organic, regeneratively farmed, and glyphosate-free, assuring a pure and sustainable product before winemaking even begins. This versatile, food-friendly wine is a sure-fire complement to fish tacos, fried calamari, pesto pasta, or Brie and Asiago cheeses. It can even hold its own against fiery Thai salads.
Lodi used to get no respect. Too far east to be part of the vibrant Bay Area, but not one of the Central Valley’s larger cities, Lodi had long been a town to pass through on the way to the mountains. A song by Creedence Clearwater Revival lamented a worse fate: “to be stuck in Lodi again.” In the wine world, serious folk long regarded Lodi as little more than a producer of jug wines. But things have changed. What the wine enthusiasts of old did not understand was that Lodi was where high-volume producers looked for quality fruit, the ingredient that gave their jug wines fruit, acidity, and structure (in addition to high yields). In recent decades, Lodi growers and producers have given their vineyards a more discerning look and found some real treasures: acres and acres of old vine vineyards, a moderate climate, well-drained sandy or loam soils and vineyard costs low enough to make varieties other than Cabernet and Chardonnay economically viable. As a result, Lodi has acquired a new reputation (and AVA status) as a versatile region capable of producing balanced, site-specific wines that take full advantage of its unique growing conditions.
Avivo is a relatively new Lodi venture founded by Ridgely Evers, who previously planted an olive grove and vineyard near Healdsburg to produce award-winning olive oils and wines exclusively from Italian grape varieties. Evers has long maintained that California’s latitude and warm, dry climate make it far better suited to Mediterranean grapes like Vermentino and Sangiovese than to traditional Bordelaise or Burgundian varieties. Lodi provided the ideal landscape to prove this on a broader scale: it offered matching climatic conditions and deep sandy soils, but at farming costs reasonable enough to deliver these wines at accessible everyday prices. To execute this vision, Avivo partnered with the Ledbetters, Lodi farmers for three generations, committing to strict organic and regenerative practices—farming completely free of glyphosate or chemical weedkillers, and working toward full biodynamic certification. Handled with minimal intervention and native yeast fermentations in the cellar, Avivo’s wines offer a pure, food-friendly expression of what Mediterranean varieties can achieve in Lodi.
| Country | USA |
| Region | California |
| Appellation(s) | Lodi (Inland Valleys) |
| Winery | Avivo Wines |
| Vintage | 2023 |
| Color | White |
| Varietal(s) | Vermentino |
| Closure | Cork |
| Volume | 750ml |
| Bottle Size | 7.5 x 30.5 |
| Case Size | 31.0 x 24.0 x 31.0 |
| Alcohol | 13.3% |
| Product Code | AV23VER |
| UPC | 134634329852 |
Citrus zest, white peach with notes of green guava and wet stone minerality open up to refreshing flavors of pink grapefruit, Bosc pear, and white flowers that linger on the long, seamless finish.
The grapes were whole-cluster pressed and fermented on native yeasts in both stainless steel tank and neutral barrels. To preserve its natural acidity, malolactic fermentation was not allowed. The wine aged 9 months in neutral barrels and stainless steel tanks. No additives but for a nominal amount of SO2 at bottling.