Стратегический сервис купил крупнейшее в США предприятие по обезалкоголиванию и расширяет производство в Калифорнии

A failed bid to buy a Santa Rosa wine company early last year has resulted in the acquisition of what’s among the nation’s largest dealcoholization plants, also in Sonoma County. And the venture is expanding with a major production site in Central California. Strategic Beverage Services Inc., led by longtime wine executive Pat Morgan and three partners, has completed its acquisition of BevZero’s U.S. business under a franchise agreement, Morgan said. The group has also acquired a winery in Lodi and is preparing to add canning, sparkling wine and additional alcohol removal capacity there. The new company and deal structure emerged from Bronco Wine Company’s equity and debt acquisition of Wine Hooligans, which previously ran BevZero’s domestic operations under contract. “In that transaction, Bronco realized that they did not take over the BevZero contract,” Morgan said. Bronco didn’t respond to a request for comment. After BevZero International, which also has operations in Spain and South Africa, reacquired its U.S. contract in March 2025, Morgan returned to running BevZero’s U.S. operations, with an eye toward ultimately buying the business. That’s when Morgan and his partners formed Strategic Beverage Services. Strategic Beverage Services is the same investor group had earlier tried to acquire Wine Hooligans for more than Bronco’s $20.3 million credit bid. That offer reportedly was rejected. “It took us the better part of the year to put all the financing together,” Morgan said about the latest deal. “We thought it would be easy and fast, given that the dealcoholization part of the wine industry is the only part that’s growing. But there are a lot of people who are wary of the wine industry these days.” Indeed, sales of full-alcohol wine, beer, spirits and cider from stores and other off-premises-consumption venues slipped 3.4% nationwide last year (down 4.9% for wine, 1.8% for spirits and 3.7% for beer, cider and seltzer) to $110 billion, according to NeilsenIQ. Meanwhile, no-alcohol counterparts passed the billion-dollar mark for the first time last year, ringing up $1.01 billion, a 19.2% increase from 2024. The sales data tracking firm also found that 95% of shoppers for alcohol-free beverages also bought drinks with alcohol. Dealcoholization hub in the North Coast Such potential for growth in no- and low-alcohol (“NoLo”) beverages prompted German company Prodalim’s Solos Technology USA subsidiary to open an alcohol-removal plant in Mendocino County early this year. Solos uses a vacuum distillation column for alcohol removal and blending back in key flavor and aroma characteristics that get extracted with the alcohol. The facility is set up to handle up to 800 gallons per hour or 4 million gallons annually. By comparison, BevZero’s Santa Rosa site at 1450 Airport Blvd. removed alcohol from over 2 million gallons of beverages last year, Morgan said. BevZero’s vacuum distillation approach use three spinning cone columns and offers additional technical services for wine and other beverage producers. Those include reverse osmosis and crossflow filtration as well as treating “stuck” or stalled fermentation. BevZero’s local roots go back to 1991 with the founding of dealcoholization trailblazer ConeTech, renamed BevZero in 2021. The international company also distributes beverage production equipment. Expansion plans Strategic Beverage Services is finalizing a deal with a local distiller that plans to purchase a still to start offering a base for commercial-grade production, Morgan said. Currently, BevZero’s ethanol byproduct of alcohol removal is “up-proofed,” or concentrated, to at least 140 proof (70% content by volume) for facility sanitation and as high as 184 proof (92%). But 190 proof (95%) is the target for production of high-proof spirits. “In about three or four months, we should have the ability to provide 190 (proof), which can be used then as a base for vodka and lots of RTDs,” he said, referring to ready-to-drink cocktails that have been popular with consumers. Store sales of spirits-based RTD beverages totaled $13.6 billion last year, up 25.7% from 2024 and reaching 12.4% of all beverage alcohol sales, NielsenIQ reported. As part of its growth, Strategic Beverage Services has bought the Thomas Allen Vineyards and Winery production facility in Lodi, effective Aug. 3. The 45-acre property has a 60,000-square-foot winery, built in 2019, with a bottling line sized to handle 1.8 million cases annually and about 500,000 gallons of storage. The Lombardi and Allen families had purchased the Napa Valley-based Provenance Vineyards brand from Treasury Wine Estates in 2021. Being added to the Lodi facility are a canning line with a tunnel pasteurizer, at least one more dealcoholization plant and a bottling line that will handle both still and sparkling wines. Now Strategic Beverage Services employs 24 people split roughly evenly between Sonoma County and Lodi. And it is already thinking about securing a Sonoma County facility in the next 12 months for additional copacking, bottling and canning capacity. Morgan, 61, has spent roughly 35 years in the alcoholic beverage industry. His partners in Strategic Beverage Services are Chris Nix, Bruce Alexander and Jack Garzella. Morgan serves as chief operating officer, Garzella as chief financial officer, and Nix and Alexander currently are advisers. Jeff Quackenbush joined North Bay Business Journal in May 1999. Reach him at [email protected] or 707-521-4256.