About Avivo Wines

Avivo is the passion project of veteran winemaker Dan Fitzgerald, the multigenerational grape-growing Ledbetter family, and retired tech executive Ridgely Evers. Brought together by a passion for the environment and planting climate-appropriate grapes, they began seeking the perfect match for Lodi’s terroir, and they settled on two of Italy’s most widely planted varieties: Sangiovese and Vermentino. Dedicated to regenerative farming, they turn those two varieties into elegant natural wines with an Old World sensibility.

The Ledbetters have been tending vineyards in and around Lodi since the 1970s, so they know the land intimately, and they’ve been farming their vineyards biodynamically since 2018. Rather than focusing on each individual vine, they treat the Sangiovese and Vermentino as part of a broader ecosystem, one that’s alive and full of organisms. And they’ve designed their regenerative farming regimen to help that ecosystem thrive.

Dan Fitzgerald brings a winemaking passion inspired by 13 years spent living in Europe, and honed over two decades working at wineries in California’s Dry Creek, Russian River, and Napa Valley, plus Australia’s Yarra Valley. With an affinity for delicately balanced, lower-alcohol wines, he ferments Avivo’s wines exclusively with native yeasts before aging them in neutral oak, seeking typicity and terroir transparency.

They named the project Avivo to convey the joy in a group of glasses, raised in a toast to life. That fervor for life runs through their farming, winemaking, and their graceful, food-friendly wines.