St. Avalo Wines Connects Via Racecars, Running, and Rare Plants

Runners, racecar drivers, and rare plant fanatics aren’t the most traditional niches for building clientele at a winery, but they’re certainly accelerating the fan base for St. Avalo Wines. 

“A lot of the success we are finding is more about the lifestyle brand as opposed to just the wine,” said Oliver Ramleth, who is the son of founders Geir and Jill Ramleth and manages the project with his wife, Diana Ramleth. “Before we had any kind of presence in distribution or direct-to-consumer, our wines would make their way out into the wild via the racetrack,” said Oliver, who races vintage cars with his father on courses near and far, including Monterey’s Laguna Seca and Italy’s famed Mille Miglia. “Racing is really something that hooks us together.” 

The brand, whose estate vineyard is located in the Los Olivos District off of Refugio Road, regularly sponsors the Santa Barbara Wine Country Half Marathon, which Oliver also runs. That explains the running crowd clientele. 

Jill, meanwhile, is developing one of the most impressive botanic gardens in the region, full of bizarre, Seussian species like cycads, agaves, orchids, plumeria, and pachypodium. The fascinating plants grow both outside in a dry garden and inside a new greenhouse. “I wanted to grow things that could still work in the cooler temperatures,” she said, explaining that winter frosts would likely kill some species. “Everything in here is an experiment.”

She’s been into plants as long as Oliver can remember. “Even when my parents had no money and were just living out of an apartment, scraping by, she had all sorts of indoor plants,” he said. The garden remains private, but wine club members can visit during pick-up parties. 

Hobbies are actually what drew Geir and Jill down from the Bay Area in the first place. Geir, who is from Norway, was into sailing — he also once held the world record for powerboat speed racing — and Jill, who is from Canada’s Yukon Territory, was hooked on horses and gardening. 

St. Avalo pickup party | Credit: Oliver Ramleth, Jon Ortner

After meeting on a train in Austria decades ago, Geir moved to California to be with Jill, then built his fortune as a pioneer of cloud computing. They bought the Santa Ynez Valley ranch in 2007 and kept it for more than a decade, primarily as a weekend getaway for the family, which includes Olvier’s brother and sister. 

Bur Geir had befriended Felipe Hernandez, one of the region’s legendary vineyard managers, and Hernandez kept urging him to plant wine grapes. That’s what happened around 2018, when the family put in nearly 10 acres of sauvignon blanc, vermentino, pinot grigio, gamay noir, sangiovese, dornfelder, cabernet sauvignon, and nero d’Avola. They also lease some of the historic Oak Savannah Vineyard, selling some fruit but also using some to make their rosé.

The name is a shortened version of Javaloe, a combination of Geir’s name — which can mean “javelin” in Norwegian — and Jill’s love for aloes. They dropped the first and last letter to get Avalo. “I made it up,” said Geir. “I jokingly say it’s the saint of bullshit.”

The first vintage was in 2021, and they now make about 1,700 cases annually of eight estate wines, which they sell through their Los Olivos tasting room. Plenty goes straight to their wine club, which also receives a quarterly broadsheet newspaper that covers the goings-on at the winery and elsewhere. 

Oliver, who still works in tech sales, wasn’t expecting to leave the Bay Area, but as the pandemic closed in, the licensed pilot took his then-girlfriend and a few bags into his plane, and they came straight to the estate in March 2020.  

“We didn’t really look back after that,” said Oliver, who now has two young children with Diana. “Over time, we have really embraced the lifestyle down here on the Central Coast. She and I are the ones managing the business now, steering the ship so to speak.”

Geir is especially proud to be selling St. Avalo in Norway. “It’s a homecoming story,” said Oliver. “This is his passion project and it’s reaching back to his home.”

Oliver is just happy to be here. “In software, you deal with so many fake people,” he said. “But meeting the people in this industry and making those connections has been pretty awesome. Starting from zero and seeing where we are today and where we hope to be has been an awesome ride and a great learning experience.”

St. Avalo Wines will give a free tasting to customers who bring a copy of this article into their tasting room in Los Olivos (2963 Grand Ave Suite B; 805-424-3125; stavalo.com). The winery will also be pouring at the 41st annual Santa Barbara Vintners Festival on Sat., Oct. 18, 1-4 p.m. at Vega Vineyard & Farm. Tickets range from $25 (non-drinking) to $2,500 (private cabana), with GA set at $125. See sbvintnersweekend.com.