(MercuryNews) - The founders of Ava Winery spend their days turning water into wine.

They aren’t miracle workers. They’re chemists with one goal — to reverse engineer the perfect bottle of wine, in a lab, without grapes.

By freeing their wine from the confines of the grape harvest, Ava’s founders say they’re creating a more environmentally sustainable, predictable and cost-effective beverage. It’s the same logic a growing number of food-tech companies already embrace — from Memphis Meats making lab-grown chicken, to Clara Foods making animal-free egg whites — as some experts worry about the toll farming and livestock take on the Earth.