Lingua Franca was founded in 2015 by master sommelier Larry Stone in the Eola-Amity Hills of Oregon's Willamette Valley, with Burgundy's Dominique Lafon as consulting partner. Avni, meaning 'stone', is the estate's multi-vineyard cuvée. The 2022 Chardonnay draws on fruit grown largely on shallow volcanic soils, sourced from the Eola-Amity Hills around the Bunker Hill estate and from selected sites in the Chehalem Mountains, Yamhill-Carlton and the marine-sediment soils of the Van Duzer Corridor. The Van Duzer wind gap channels cool Pacific air through the vineyards, driving the bright acidity and mineral tension that define the region and this wine.

The grapes were whole-cluster pressed with around 2.5% crushed prior to pressing, then settled in tank for roughly 24 hours. Barrel fermentation ran on wild yeast, with primary and malolactic fermentation both spontaneous and completed individually in each barrel. Ageing was in a combination of about 26% new 600-litre puncheons and 74% neutral large wooden casks and older French oak puncheons and barriques, for eleven months sur lie. The wine was then returned to closed tank on its lees for a further six months before bottling, a labour-intensive élevage that rounds the district's natural acidity while preserving flinty, saline precision.