Daniel Fitzgerald is the winemaker for AVIVO. He’s focused on crafting wines from Lodi, California. After living in Belgium for 14 years, he developed a preference for elegant, lower-alcohol wines. A harvest internship led him from architecture to winemaking, culminating in a Bachelor’s degree in Enology from CSU Fresno.
He trained under industry leaders, including James Halliday and Bob Cabral, with experience at Coldstream Hills, Williams Selyem, and Robert Sinskey Vineyards. An entrepreneur and hands-on builder, Daniel has founded three production companies and built three wineries.
He is currently Managing Partner and Director of Winemaking at Elevation Custom Crush and Avivo Wines, winemaker for Paradise Ridge Winery and Enos Vineyards, and co-owner of DANIEL Wines and Volare Imports. He and his wife, Barbara, divide their time between Sonoma Valley and Puglia, Italy.
Media Inquiries: Marlowe McEfee mmcefee@colangelopr.com | https://avivowines.com/
What’s the ONE THING most unique, authentic, & memorable about your brand?
AVIVO is Demeter and CCOF certified, farmed organically and biodynamically, and made with just two ingredients: grapes and a touch of sulfur. We are a carbon-negative company, with all vineyards located in Lodi.
What truly sets AVIVO apart is how we chose what to plant. Instead of letting market demand dictate varieties, we let site and climate lead the decision. With the Ledbetter family as our farming partners, I studied soils, diurnal shift, growing season length, and historical weather data before selecting varieties best suited to each location.
This approach reduced the need for intensive vineyard inputs and supports our carbon-sequestration goals. We began with Sangiovese and Vermentino and have since planted Sagrantino, Pallagrello, Aglianico, and Greco—varieties chosen for place, not popularity.
Describe how and what you’d do with your winemaking career or winery business if you were not constrained.
My dream job would be to take what I am doing with AVIVO international. I’d love nothing more than to make wines in France, Italy, Germany, Australia, South Africa, Argentina, Chile and so on…. The opportunity to learn, work, travel and especially eat all over the world is my dream. My wife and I are both in the business (she on the marketing side) and we would very much like to travel the world for work. What could be better than a job that melds perfectly with the lifestyle you want to lead?
What is the One Wine most emblematic of your brand and/or winemaking style? Tell us its story.
I would recommend the red wine as most emblematic of our brand. It is 90% Sangiovese and 10% Syrah with great red fruit, a pragmatic, medium body and a balance of tannin and acidity that offers great structure and refreshment. One of my least favorite attributes I find in red wine is when I take a sip and am immediately looking for a glass of water. There is no reason why red wines can’t be just as refreshing as a white or rosé. Sangiovese is a wonderfully flexible grapevine; it produces a red wine that is incredibly adaptable to a wide range of culinary accompaniments. It pairs just as beautifully with a roasted chicken as it cuts the fat of a ribeye steak or provides a vibrant undercurrent to a braised lamb shank. Read my review of this wine here.
Bonus Question: Why Winemaking?
I grew up in Belgium and moved to the United States with my family in 1995 at the age of 16. I fell into winemaking by accident. After studying architecture for four years, I found working in an office all day not to my liking. My father suggested I take some time off from my job and perhaps work a harvest since I was developing a taste for wine. After my first harvest, I never looked back. After three years of bouncing from the northern to southern hemisphere working two harvests a year, I went back to school to earn my degree in Enology.