Âmevive: Two Pairs of Boots, One Vineyard, and a Billion Tenants

The Wines

Âmevive Alisos Canyon Vineyard Albariño 2025
Âmevive Ibarra-Young Vineyard Los Olivos District Estate Rosé 2025 
Âmevive Los Olivos District “Sundrop” 2023 
Âmevive Ibarra-Young Vineyard Los Olivos District “Peripherie” 2021 
Âmevive Santa Barbara County “Ravie” 2024 
Âmevive Ibarra-Young Vienyard Los Olivos District Syrah 2023 

The Judgement

There is a French word, âmevive, that translates roughly to “living soul.” It’s also the name Alice Anderson and Topher de Felice gave their winery in Los Olivos, and it is, I’d argue, the most honest piece of branding and winegrowing in Santa Barbara County. Because what they’re selling, when you get past the bottle and the cork and the pretty label, is dirt. Living dirt. Dirt with a pulse.

This is the part the wine industry would rather you not contemplate. The romance of wine is built on a fiction of cleanliness: crystal stemware, white tablecloths, the sommelier in his pressed shirt, etc., but the truth is that every great bottle begins in something closer to a compost heap. Not unlike my childhood.

Tom Vilsack, then U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, put it this way in 2015: “There are more living organisms in a single teaspoon of healthy soil than there are people on the earth.“ Let that ruin your next salad. Then he added the line that ought to be tattooed on every viticulturist’s forearm: “Anything can have a ‘quality,’ but only living things can have health.” 

Most modern viticulture has spent 50 years murdering that distinction. Synthetic fertilizer, herbicide, quick yields, dead ground. You end up with vineyards that look fine from the road and are, beneath the surface, essentially hydroponic. The grapes don’t know where they are. Winery marketing departments, of course, prefer the word “clean.” 

Alice and Topher don’t have a marketing department. They have a vineyard, two pairs of boots, and the radical conviction that the soil is the product. They’re admitting they aren’t just beverage manufacturers: They’re high-stakes overseers for a billion-member underground commune, sans the Woodstock vibes or murky cult ethos.

They took over Ibarra-Young Vineyard, which was planted in 1971 (own-rooted, organically farmed since 1993) and decided to healthify the dirty underworld. That last word has unfortunately been claimed by gangsters and screenwriters, but I mean it the old way: the terra firma, the realm beneath, the engine room of everything. 

Rhône master Bob Lindquist gave the vineyard good bones. Alice and Topher are refreshing its soul.

They make their own compost. They keep cover crops in the rows year-round, which act as a habitat for beneficial insects, and so that the ground is never naked, erosion-wise. They rotate sheep, chickens, and ducks through the vineyard, grazing and fertilizing in a single transaction. (There was simply no elegant way to say that.)

Alice’s stated goal is to have something blooming on the property 365 days a year: hedgerows, pollinator strips, native plants on the edges. They’re cultivating the unseen life of the soil, trusting that the vines will draw that vitality into every cluster. This is what the sommelier means, technically, by terroir. He just doesn’t put it that way at the table because he’s shamelessly trying to upsell you on the caviar appetizer.

The wines have what the trade calls “energy,” which is a polite way of saying they taste like something is alive in there. Because something is. Because Alice and Topher spent the winter thinking about worms. This is either a partnership built to last ages, or a cry for help. The wines suggest the former.

And you can appreciate the difference. Pour a glass of Âmevive next to one of the big-brand bottlings that fill the end caps at Vons — you know the labels, with the cursive script and the implied château graphic.

One of them tastes like a focus group reached homogenized consensus in the board room of a Modesto tank farm, and the other tastes like a delineated corner of the Santa Ynez Valley in a specific year, touting its laudable Santa Barbara–ness because two focused obsessives coaxed those qualities from the ground beneath them.

That’s the whole argument. That’s the whole winery. 

Embrace the dirt.

Âmevive Alisos Canyon Vineyard Albariño 2025: Topher popped this open first and as soon as he poured, on a windy afternoon at a picnic table in the middle of the vineyard, the aromas were carried on the breeze straight to my delighted schnozzola. This Spanish grape’s forward Golden Delicious apple and peach characteristics weren’t dimmed by the gusts as we sat in the vineyard: They were amplified. Texturally lavish, with white flower accents and a leesy finish. With aeration, subtly honeyed dried fruit introduce themselves. More solid proof that this varietal will inspire even further planting throughout the county. (Confession: I bought two bottles.)

Âmevive Ibarra-Young Vineyard Los Olivos District Estate Rosé 2025: (Graciano is a red Spanish grape grown in Rioja.) Deep hues and rose petal/raspberry fragrances lead to a textured, forward, and lengthy rosé that will prompt you to engage in multiple glasses, at least until your spouse finally says “Whoa, babe!” A good reason for day drinking.

Âmevive Los Olivos District “Sundrop” 2023: Roussanne, marsanne, and viognier combine to raid the spice rack from Grandma’s kitchen, delivering an enticing flurry of nutmeg and cinnamon to coalesce in unifying fashion with the slightly porcine citrus and stone fruits. Lengthy, broad, and desirable, from first whiff to the resolute finale. 

Âmevive Ibarra-Young Vineyard Los Olivos District “Peripherie” 2021: A blend of 55 percent marsanne, 35 percent syrah, and 10 percent mourvèdre. A light red that reminded me of a cru Beaujolais, given its black pepper and understated earthy tones: The underworld speaks in this wine! Texturally more extravagant than the hue suggests, and keyed on red fruits despite the majority marsanne, a white that clearly brought the viscosity. 

Âmevive Santa Barbara County “Ravie” 2024: A GSM (50/25/25) from the dark side, with pepper, star anise, and black cardamom intertwined with a sea of deep purple fruits that sing Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters,” offering a rather Northern Rhône valley profile that I can’t resist. (Confession: I didn’t buy any ’cuz it was sold out.)

Âmevive Ibarra-Young Vineyard Los Olivos District Syrah 2023: Tight and reticent when I sampled it in front of Alice and Topher, so I held onto it for two more days. The expected blossoming effect took place: Black fruit, ground peppercorn, and faint green olive emerged. A fanned-out expansiveness took hold, with deep plum and blueberry notes and accents of herbs and pepper, a cellar-worthy embodiment of satiating syrah. 

See amevivewine.com.