Can regenerative wine scale? Ridgely Evers on AVIVO, Lodi, and the business of deliciousness

In early September, I sat down to chat with Ridgely Evers, founder and owner of DaVero Farms & Winery and co-founder of AVIVO Wines. Our conversation touched on climate-adaptive varieties, retail marketing, and the most important job of any bottle of wine. (Hint: It’s to taste good.)

“I wrote software from 1967 until 2024–but for the last 40-plus years, I’ve also been farming,” Evers told me over Zoom, neatly summarizing a monumental career that has spanned tech and agriculture, often simultaneously.

Ridgely Evers, co-founder of AVIVO Wines. (Media Photo: AVIVO Wines)

Evers helped create QuickBooks at Intuit before turning more of his attention to farming, importing olive trees from Tuscany for his Healdsburg property in 1990. His wine epiphany came in 1999, when he was offered a glass of Sagrantino di Montefalco at an Italian restaurant in New York: “It is the reason why we make wine at DaVero.”

Today, DaVero Farms is a living farm and vineyard that is certified organic and biodynamic. AVIVO Wines (Italian for “alive”) extends that philosophy to Lodi, where it works with the Ledbetter family to farm its grapes in an ecologically and socially responsible way. AVIVO’s goal: to expand regenerative viticulture while also making early-drinking, food-friendly wines that stand on their own merits.

Evers is insistent that good wine begins with selecting the right grape for the right place. For AVIVO, that mostly means Mediterranean varieties including Vermentino and Sangiovese. Organically grown fruit is paired with simple, low-intervention winemaking. That means no added sugars, no colors, and no extras, with minimal SO₂ at bottling.

Throughout our conversation, Evers is generous with his knowledge, outspoken, and very funny. He speaks about winemaking with a rare mix of reverence and pragmatism.

A lifelong coder, Evers clearly thinks like one. Wine-aisle dilemmas are decision trees, and fruit sourcing follows the law of “Quality In, Quality Out.”

At the heart of AVIVO is respect for nature and a deep sense of responsibility to the Earth and to the end consumer. These principles are evident in the winery’s practices from soil management to pricing and packaging.

The current AVIVO lineup: 2025 White, 2025 Rosé, and 2024 Red.

But making and selling wine also presents a series of practical problems to be solved–through logic and efficiency, through experimentation and continual refinement at every stage of the process. In the interview that follows, Evers shares his vision for making socially conscious (and delicious!) wines at scale.

This conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Michelle Gruben (of The Wine Fairy): So, I read up on your background and I read about the wines, and I tasted them earlier today. I think I understand–or I am familiar with–the basics of regenerative viticulture and organic farming and what you’re trying to do.

So I would just love for you to tell me about it. Tell me what you’re most excited about sharing, and we can start there.

Ridgely Evers (AVIVO Wines): So you read about the olive trees and all of that, and the fact that I had no intention of being in the wine business until I met Sagrantino. But what I’ve learned is, I’m a very “left-brain slash right-brain” human in ways that are very difficult to live with.

Because I have to learn to trust what my right brain brings me, which is through a non-rational path. This is inherent to the right brain–but then my left brain won’t rest until it figures out the why.

And so, I just recognized, Okay. The olive trees thrived. Oh, it’s a Mediterranean climate, right? Duh.

But then I started experimenting with different things and we’ve really zeroed in on an area of the Mediterranean for which we are particularly well-suited, which is really the western coast of Italy. Liguria all the way down to Campania–I haven’t gone south of Campania, and I’ve never done anything from Lazio. I’ve planted a lot of different varieties and tried them and everything that we’ve done that’s in that band really works.

And so I developed what I believe is, in fact, the formula for delicious wine. And it has three components.

The first is: Don’t ask, “How do I make the best X?” But rather, “What’s the best X to grow here?” So not, “How do I make the best Chardonnay?” but “What’s the best grape to grow here?” And that’s what humans have been doing for literally millennia. In Europe.

Regeneratively farmed vineyard in the Lodi AVA, California. (Media Photo: AVIVO Wines)

They’ve identified now about 2,500 different varieties in Europe. Why? Because different grapes succeed best at making wine–which the plant doesn’t care about, by the way–in certain environments.

So step one: Choose something that is climate appropriate. Then, the vine is in balance in your environment. So you’re not fighting the vine and instead you can focus on the real job of the farmer.

Which is step two, the microbiology of the soil. Because everything you see above the ground is a lagging indicator of the dynamism and diversity of the microbiology in the soil. At the core of regenerative farming–of biodynamic farming and organic farming and regenerative farming–is that concept.

And then, if you’re doing that, if you’re growing a variety that’s balanced for making wine in your climate and you have that vibrant microbiology–including the yeast and bacteria that will then do the fermentation–then step three in making delicious wine is to bring the fruit to the crush pad and get out of the way.

Nature makes the wine. But if you’re not doing that–if you’re not growing something that’s in balance in your climate and/or you’re not building a vibrant, thriving microbiology–then when you bring the fruit to the crush pad, that’s when the work starts.

Sugar plus yeast equals alcohol, predates Homo sapiens by, oh, I don’t know, several million years. It’s not like, “Oh, we discovered wine!” No, we said, “Oh, look at this rotting grape. That’s delicious. And I feel kind of good. That was really funny!”

Right.

And I’ve learned through trial and error. As I’m an experiential learner, I don’t really learn well from reading. Or being taught. I learned from dirty fingers.

And I’ve learned that a lot of what we thought was true, in terms of viticulture in California, was actually a result of not choosing climate appropriate varieties. And all the contortions we then had to go through as farmers and then subsequently as producers in order to make that into good wine–which we have learned how to do.

But. We’re still not asking, “What’s the best variety of wine from here–what are the best varieties?” And that’s what we’ve been doing [at DaVero and AVIVO]. And these things have emerged.

Traditional California viticulture–because it is so input intensive, both in the vineyard and then also in the crush pad–it also tends to be pretty carbon emissive.

And you’re way too young to remember, but there was a legendary NPR talk show on weekends called Car Talk. With “Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers,” a couple of MIT grads who actually owned a car repair shop on Harvard Square. And I always loved that show because they had the first half and second half, and then they had the third half. And so 10 years ago, when I turned 65, I had a self-and-mirror conversation.

I said, “Okay, what do you want to do with the third half of your life?” And the answer came back, “I want to sequester carbon at scale.” How do I do that? Can’t do it with software.

No.

But I’ve learned how to do it with viticulture. How do I scale that? And it turns out, grapevines have no concept of longitude, of east and west. They really understand latitude because they’re plants and they’re solar-powered DNA factories.

It turns out that from a vine’s perspective, Sonoma and Napa and Lodi are the same. And I had been buying fruit from Lodi going back to 2013 or 2014, and I was stunned by the quality. I started helping make wine in Napa in the late 70s and then stopped because I wasn’t a fan of the wine.

So I went to the largest independent grape grower in the state. The Ledbetter family [of Vino Farms] were wonderful. Such good people. And with the idea for AVIVO, I said, I’ll pay you double for your fruit if you convert to regenerative farming. “It’s a deal.” And so that’s where AVIVO came out of.

And we’re about to issue a press release stating that the Ledbetters have now, as a direct result of the AVIVO project, transformed over 900 acres of vineyard from conventional farming to regenerative farming.

So I wanted to ask you a little bit about that conversion process. You talk about it earlier–about vineyard health being a lagging indicator–and that it takes a while until you see results.

And I’ve seen, when I’ve talked to winemakers, that’s something of a frustration. It’s a lot of effort. It’s a lot of cost. And then there’s a wait.

So, is there a moment where you–as someone who buys fruit or someone who farms–notices a tipping point or an inflection point or a moment where you go like, Oh, this is working and here are the positive signs?

That is such a good question. Wow.

Yes. Or no.

It is a process that never ends. And especially, where does the word “regenerative” come from? It was actually coined in opposition to “degenerative.” Conventional viticulture, conventional farming is degenerative.

So the question is not “When do you notice a difference?” Although I’ll come back to that. But “When are you done?” And the answer is never.

Because what you’re doing is an ongoing process of improvement in the environment. And you see big gains in the first few years, but then every year thereafter [smaller gains].

So now, to directly answer your question: The taste difference was palpable. Within the three years that it took to convert the land. I’d say really in the second year, because nature is powerful.

You know, if you stop messing with her, she’ll come roaring back. And so it was. It was absolutely clear. And it really showed up first and foremost on the nose.

As with the Vermentino here.

You know, Vermentino is such a fantastic, fantastic wine.

Because it’s a perfect example. So, personal bias here–but I think it’s safe to say that wine evolved as an ingredient in a meal.

The purpose of the wine is to make the food better. The purpose of the food is to make the wine better. The purpose of both is to make the table better, which I consider to be the most sacred place in human existence.

So AVIVO is “Built for the Table.” Let me ask about that. The label, it has this “made for the table” slogan–or philosophy.

And if you talk about these things co-evolving, food and wine–I think many people would agree at some point they got separated. That wine became perhaps more of a luxury or more divorced from the experience of eating. Is there a way that we can bring them back together? Is there a way we can encourage that relationship?

Let me parse that. I would say that is way less true in Europe than it is here.

For sure. For sure.

And, you know, if you recognize that every grape variety they’ve identified–almost without exception–in the Northern Hemisphere makes its best wine at the northern extreme of the latitudinal range of that variety. And the converse is also true: The farther south you go, closer to the equator, the less good the wine and the bigger the wine, the more imbalanced.

We are here about 700 miles, a thousand kilometers south of Burgundy. So the wines [from Burgundian varieties] are what you would expect. It’s what you’d expect that plant to do if you moved it to a more resource-rich environment–which is make more amplified fruit.

Because the fruit has two jobs: Protect and defend the nascent seed until it’s viable. Keep animals away, and then become bait. So the fruit gets eaten, so the kids get taken someplace else and dropped off in a shot of fertilizer.

Right. [Laughs]

Fabulous business. But so what the plant wants to do is make that fruit as lush and appealing and compelling as it possibly can.

But that’s not what we’re looking for in making wine. You would expect, if you grew a variety that is its best self in Piedmont to make a less balanced, “loud guy in the bar” wine as you get closer and closer to Sicily. And that’s exactly what happens.

So what we’ve been making in California actually isn’t as table-optimized as the antecedents in Europe are. Which is why I get back to, “If you start by growing the right thing and then focus on the microbiology, nature will make the wine.” You don’t have to intervene.

But those wines are not as food-friendly as their European counterparts through no fault of the plant, and through no fault of the grower. It’s just a question of, “What plant you have made the decision to grow?”

I was really generously introduced to the wines of Bordeaux and, to a lesser extent, Burgundy when I was in my 20s. And I fell in love. I thought, “Oh my God, I get it.” So wine has been a deep part of my life for almost 50 years. Maybe over 50 years. And I love it. And I like lots of different wines. I drink lots of different things.

But the ones that I like are always the ones that are balanced. And that have the attributes that we’ve learned to look for because it’s an ingredient in a meal. It’s not a cocktail.

So to your question–I’m still answering your question. I was thrilled with the very first Sangiovese harvest for DaVero in 2004, from which I made a direct-press rosé. And I was blown away by the wine.

I was like, “Wow, this has acid and balance and nuance and character. That’s what wine tastes like.” And that’s been my experience with almost everything that I’ve tried since, that meets the test of climate-proven.

Where I’ve tried something that wasn’t climate-proven, it hasn’t worked. And the two things that I would present as examples of that are two of my favorite wine grapes, which are Nebbiolo and Pinot Nero. And they just didn’t work here.

So I’m in Texas wine, a little bit. And our struggles are mirroring, I think, what California was discovering 10 or 20 years ago. So I feel like we can learn from this whole question of varietal selection, of climate-appropriate varieties.

You were making wine in California from Vermentino, Sangiovese–these Italian varieties–before they were widely known, widely accepted. And there’s new varieties coming down the pipeline, I think, that are even less familiar to consumers.

So what do you do? Do you make analogues for people? To educate and to get those wines accepted in the marketplace?

These are good questions.

Well, I’m a retailer. I don’t want to be telling people, “This is like Sauvignon Blanc,” because it’s not. Vermentino is not like Sauvignon Blanc.

But there has to be a point of entry. So I’m curious what you think are the best practices.

So with the very first bottlings, we did kind of a test. They said “Sangiovese” and “Vermentino” on the front label. And, you know, you got the dog hearing a high-pitched whistle [expression]: “I have no idea what that means.”

So we changed it to “Red” and “White.” And that’s the place to start, because that’s the first step in the decision tree.

AVIVO Red (blend of Sangiovese, Syrah, and Graciano) poured tableside. (Media Photo: AVIVO Wines)

So, what we have done, as a domestic industry, is ignored the consumer. All the research says the number-one feeling that a consumer has in the wine aisle is anxiety.

As an industry, we don’t speak to that. We ignore it. What we’ve done with AVIVO is to embrace it.

I’ve done a lot of focus group research on this. What consumers want to know is this: What is it? What does it taste like? And how do I use it? And so if you look at our labels, all three really speak to that. And it’s all designed.

I love this quote from Wine Market Council. It says, “Consumers want confidence more than expertise.” And I think that’s really important. Meet them where they are.

Now, I can’t change the fact that it’s Sangiovese and Vermentino, and I wouldn’t want to. But I have the rule that the number one job of a wine is to be delicious. If it’s not delicious, stop talking.

Right.

If it is delicious, then keep going.

But then also, there’s figuring out the money. Starting with the wages of the farm workers, because that’s a big part of regenerative farming. The whole system has to be regenerative, not extractive. But bringing this [wine] to market at a price point that doesn’t provoke fear.

These are in Spec’s. They have the “pick six” pricing. $17.99.

So, I did want to touch on that scalability, for sure.

It’s this really ambitious and, I think, correct idea that you have–that organic, regenerative wine shouldn’t be a tiny category that’s just for a tiny fraction of people who care about those things.

It should be larger. It should be more available. And price is a big part of that. So, “How are you doing it?” is more or less the question. How are you making this wine for $17.99?

Do you know who Erica Duecy is? So she was the editor-in-chief of SevenFifty Daily. She’s gone on now. She has a fabulous podcast called The Business of Drinks. Wicked smart.

That was exactly the question she asked me when she interviewed me last year. The final question: “How are you making wines this good at this price?” And the answer is, it’s really a function of what we don’t do rather than what we do.

So, we are, our wine making process, or wine production process, is incredibly simple. Because it doesn’t need to be complicated. And we’ve started with fruit with exceptional quality from a region that is wildly underpriced. Wildly underpriced.

And then everything, every single thing along the way, we’ll sit down as a team, and say, “Okay, how do we remove cost without subtracting value?” And it’s not about what we do in producing the wine. That process is so straightforward.

Dan Fitzgerald, who’s my co-founder and winemaking partner, really understands how to do this. If he were on the call, he would tell you, this is the cleanest fruit he has ever worked with. He doesn’t have to do anything.

And that’s been true now for eight years. So, I think that’s a big chunk of it. And then just being really focused on, “Okay, what’s the thing to deliver quality?” Don’t overcomplicate it.

For example, these wines are intended to be released fairly young. So, we don’t have to put a lot of money into holding them in inventory for two or three or four years.

We use all stainless steel. At times we’ll use a few barrels, just because the marginal chunk doesn’t fit into a tank that we’ve got. And those are always neutral oak. So, the neutral oak is not expensive at all. You’re taking somebody else’s $2,000 barrel and paying them $50 for it. And it works just fine. The wine doesn’t know.

So, that’s really the answer. And I think that I would challenge you to ask the opposite question, which is, “Why does this stuff cost so much?” For example, one of my standard aphorisms is, “The wine has no idea what the building looks like.”

Right.

Or the label.

So that last consumer type that you talked about–the mistrustful one, the one that is price-conscious and skeptical of the industry jargon–I think I see that as a challenge with getting regenerative, organic acceptance in my market. Because people don’t know what those words mean.

They don’t need to. For AVIVO, the wine lives or dies on the basis of deliciousness.

Now, it’s delicious because we’re making it from climate-proven varieties. It’s delicious because we’re farming it organically and biodynamically, which creates that vibrant microbiology and allows us to produce it without intervention. That’s why the wine is delicious.

I do not want your sympathy because it’s organic. Right? To get you to settle for anything less than deliciousness.

No. And I sort of hate when I hear all of that before someone pours me. I want to taste first. And then I want to hear about the winemaking. Because if it doesn’t taste good, then the rest of the story doesn’t matter.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And, you know that was an important part of the evolution of the brand. Because I remember that my mission in starting it had very much to do with regenerative farming and carbon sequestration and so forth.

But I realized that the success of the product can’t lean on that. It has to lean on, “These are objectively fantastic wines that happen to be an extraordinary value.”

Is there anything…you mentioned Sagrantino earlier, falling in love with Sagrantino. Is there anything else that you make–or that you taste–and say, “Oh, that’s good. That’s exactly what I want to be drinking”?

Lots of things. But I will tell you, I live in the Dry Creek Valley in Sonoma County, and I have access to a lot of different wines. And then, the only wine club I belong to is Italian.

I have pretty catholic tastes when it comes to wine, but I am never disappointed opening a bottle of AVIVO, and that brings me extraordinary pride.

Would I like to do some other things? Maybe. But to me, if I can solve your red, white, and rosé problem, I think we’re kind of done. Would you like a bigger red or a more floral white, maybe? And there are things that we could do to go down that path.

At DaVero, we make a wine that we call Altobasso. That’s a blend. We’re not bound by tradition, but we are bound by climate. And–this is not done in Italy because it’s like letting Montagues date Capulets–but it is a blend of Sangiovese and Barbera, and it’s RFG. Really good.

Will we do something like that for AVIVO? Maybe, but that’s for later. Right now, let’s just establish that these are delicious wines. And you’ll tell two friends, and they’ll tell two friends, because that’s ultimately how this grows.

And our core consumer, it is what’s referred to in marketing as the “conscious consumer.” People who care what they eat–because those are the people who actually do read labels. And they’re actually not particularly price sensitive. They’re not profligate, but they recognize, “If I want better, I’m going to pay more.”

They are also phenomenal evangelists. It’s a population that skews heavily female, and if you can make her happy, then you’re on a good path.

So the three wines that I’m tasting, they’re all from Lodi, from one family’s vineyard. Is that right?

I mean, they have different sites–but they own 2,000 acres of vineyard, almost all of it in Lodi. No two parcels are more than half mile apart and they’ve been farming them for a long time. And, you know, you build a business with people, not with product. And they’re just the greatest.

So with Lodi, the reputation that the wines have–at least here where I’m at [in Texas]–is that it’s big, heavily alcoholic Zin. And that’s about it. I think people would be really, really surprised to find this much freshness and this much aroma in wines from Lodi.

I mean, you talked about vineyard management and about fruit quality and about gentle handling. Is it like an early picking thing? Like, especially this Vermentino and this [rosé of Sangiovese]. Really good acidity, really good balance. And I’m curious, I’d like to know some of the winemaking.

So what’s step one in producing delicious wine? Grow a variety that is climate-proven.

The climate in Lodi is, by the way, remarkably similar to the climate in Napa and remarkably similar to the climate in Sonoma. It’s not outrageously hot because it gets a fair amount of influence off the Bay. It has the reputation of producing plonk because [historically] they’ve sold most of their fruit for the wines on the bottom shelf. But the area is perfectly capable of producing stunning fruit. Stunning.

And we’re going to be investing a fair amount in Texas with in-store tastings and samplings and hosting events–getting liquid to lips, as they say.

We’re in a number of different retailers and a growing number of places in Texas, but our primary partner is Spec’s. We’re going to be doing a whole series of “Here’s dinner!” events. Because a lot of their stores carry food, like “Here’s a recipe and here’s the wine to have with it.” This wine is an ingredient in the meal.

And I guess again, I would ask the opposite question, which is, “How in the world are you going to establish yet another Napa Cab or Sonoma Pinot Noir or Carneros Chardonnay? What is it that makes it different?”

What we’re making is very different. And it’s delicious because it’s different. It’s not, “We’re not different to be different.” We’re different because it’s better. He says, with the hubris of the entrepreneur.

I wanted to ask you, actually, a little bit about risk tolerance. So I noticed when I was reading the technical sheets that you use, or the winemaker uses all indigenous yeast to do these ferments. Is there a risk associated with that? Do you ever get a bad batch?

No, because the whole system is in balance. If the fruit is not in balance, then it is risky to turn to the native microbiology. But if the system is in balance, that includes the microbiology.

And you know, we’ve been doing this now across multiple SKUs, across multiple years. But we have never had a fermentation fail to start or run away, or fail to go dry.

That seems wonderful–like, almost miraculous.

It’s the miracle called sugar plus yeast equals wine.

But yeast don’t taste wine the way we do. You know, they don’t have the same sense organs or priorities–

No, but their job–they have a job, which is to turn sugar into alcohol. That’s what they do. And the other thing about it is the subspecies. It’s Saccharomyces, but there are probably a functionally infinite number of subspecies. And what’s interesting is multiple subspecies exist in every vineyard.

The difference from year to year is not the presence or absence, but rather the proportion of those one to the other because they impart flavor. I describe our wines as time capsules of that variety in that vineyard that year. And I think that’s one of the sexiest things in the world. Always delicious, always different.

Well, the wines are lovely. The story is so interesting. I’m so glad that I got to taste them. And do you have anything else that you want to add?

You know, we’re having fun doing this, but we take ourselves very seriously. We take what we do very seriously. We don’t take ourselves seriously. But we have a fundamental principle which is, our inside and our outside have to match.

And a wonderful woman just joined us, and she comes from a very large, well-known wine company. I asked her, “So when you guys were having brainstorming sessions, was there anything like, ‘Our inside and our outside have to match?’” She said, “Oh, hell no. It’s ‘Have to figure out how to move this stuff.’”

And so, you know, this is my “third half of life” project. There’s not a fourth half. So I’m going to do this one the right way and hopefully it will resonate.

And hopefully–because we’re also going to start open-sourcing our financials next year. We want the rest of the industry to see what this looks like from a financial perspective and see, “Oh, we can do this.”

I love that. I have great curiosity about that part of it, you know.

Yeah. I mean our gross margins are excellent, and sustainably so. And you know, this is the hard part. The “create” lifestyle is behind us. We’ve learned, and we have confidence in our ability to produce this product with integrity, with transparency, and at scale.

Now all we have to do is get the dogs to eat the dog food. For which I will be grateful for your help.

Yes, absolutely. I really enjoy these wines. I can tell the sincerity and the passion, you know, behind the project. It’s there. It was really cool that you were able to make time for this.

Well, I’m thrilled. This is the most fun part of my job.

Thanks again.

The Wines

All three wines are made from certified organic, biodynamic, and regeneratively farmed grapes. Suggested retail is $19.99 in the DFW area.

AVIVO White (2025)
A bright, aromatic 100% Vermentino from River’s Edge Vineyard in the Lodi AVA, at 12.5% ABV. An expressive herbal nose with green and pink apple, citrus zest, chive blossom, fennel bulb, and green peach. High-acid with a bone-dry, citric finish. The wine rests on its fine lees for 9 months, adding some roundness to a palate of Bartlett pear, apples, and stone fruit.

AVIVO Rosé (2025)
AVIVO’s Rosé is whole-cluster pressed, cold settled, and vinified in stainless steel for maximum vibrancy. Dry and red-fruited with a savory, spicy edge. Pink cherries, just-ripe strawberry, and garden tomatoes are scented with sweet basil, sage, white pepper, and coriander. Desert succulents–prickly pear and aloe–and a lightly tannic texture lead a finish that’s both long and fresh. A lip-smacking, versatile apéritif or food wine. 100% Sangiovese from 40-year-old vines, at 13.3% ABV.

AVIVO Red (2024)
A fruit-forward, medium-bodied red blend of 90% Sangiovese, 8% Syrah, and 2% Graciano. Red and black plum and soft dark cherry meet notes of rubbed sage, vanilla, earth, and cola spice. Moderate warmth and silty tannins, with an admirable balance between ripe fruit and varietal spiciness. 14.1% ABV, aged 18 months in a combination of neutral oak barrels and stainless steel.

Where To Find It

AVIVO wines are available in Texas through Spec’s and other retail partners. Other locations: Use the winery’s store locator to find them near you.