Mercenary Premier has bought a winemaking facility in California from Treasury Wine Estates.
The fledgling drinks co-packer has acquired the Baileyana Winery site in San Luis Obispo County for an undisclosed sum.
In a statement on LinkedIn yesterday (24 June), the California-based business, formerly named Mercenary Canning Solutions, announced the launch of Mercenary Premier and the purchase of the facility in Edna Valley.
Treasury Wine Estates also confirmed to Just Drinks that the site has been sold. The group said it would not comment further on "specific property transactions or assets that may or may not be on the market".
The new co-packer is aiming "to build California’s leading destination for custom vinification and end-to-end winemaking services," its statement added.
According to Mercenary Premier, the Baileyana Winery site has "some of the most advanced winemaking technology available in the region".
"The facility will serve as the company's anchor location for full custom vinification services, expanding its capabilities beyond mobile packaging and into comprehensive winery production," the business said.
The company, which is looking to start its operations for the 2026 harvest, describes itself on its website as "a production and packaging ally for beverage brands".
Its services include custom crush, bulk wine production, blending, wine-based drinks and packaging services such as counterpressure canning.
Treasury Wine Estates signaled its intention to sell some of its facilities in California at its investor day earlier this month.
Speaking to analysts at the event on 4 June, CEO Sam Fischer said TWE had already carried out “a detailed assessment of the demand outlook" in the US, and found its supply chain in California “will require significant changes to correct what is a structural misalignment between capacity and out future state portfolio needs”.
TWE has already started implementing these changes, Fischer said. They include reducing the number of growers the company works with and “fallowing a number of vineyards”, as well as selling “elevated levels of luxury wine from recent vintages currently held on our balance sheet” over a longer time period.
Later in the event, Kerrin Petty, TWE's the group's chief supply and sustainability officer, provided more detail on how the company plans to make changes in its US supply chain.
As well as cutting its network of growers and fallowing vineyards, Petty said the group was looking to focus on “materially reducing our owned and leased vineyards in Napa, Sonoma and the Central Coast and addressing capacity and utilization of our winery and packaging assets”.
The St. Helena Winery is becoming the group’s “main US luxury production hub”, Perrin said. TWE will move production of Frank Family Vineyards and Stag’s Leap Winery to the site. Its Paso Robles and San Luis Obispo wineries are to be “closed and divested over the course of the next 12 months”, he added.
TWE’s bottling centre in Sonoma will also be reduced in size, “reflecting lower volumes moving through”.
Fischer's “transformation programme” – dubbed Ascent – was first laid out in December. It features a target for cost savings of A$100m (US$71.4m) a year over the next three financial years.
At that investor day, TWE also revealed it was reviewing its business in the Americas and had plans to cut its product range from 76 to less than 30 brands.
