Sonoma County wine trucking, warehousing firms sold to Solano County’s Yandell
One of the North Bay’s largest companies that helps wineries move their wine and related goods around in California has expanded its Wine Country footprint and capabilities.
SC Warehouses Inc., a Yandell family company based in Solano County, purchased Sonoma County competitor Eagle Transportation Company Inc. and related company Redwood Empire Wine Storage Inc., from Mike Brady, Jeannette Moneymaker and Heidi Pabros. Those longtime employees had acquired the companies in 2015 from the Galeazzi family who started Eagle in 1977 and the storage company in 1991.
The Santa Rosa-based companies employ about 50 and will continue to operate under their current names, according to Rob Sell, CEO of SC Warehouses and Yandell Truckaway.
The 79-year-old Yandell organization now has 40 semi-truck tractors (equally split between Eagle and Yandell); a number of trailers in configurations ranging from flatbeds to bulk-wine tankers; 900,000 square feet of warehouse space in Benicia, Fairfield and Santa Rosa; plus additional truck terminals in Stockton and Watsonville.
Key additions for Yandell are Sonoma County-based bulk-wine tanker trailers, vans for moving dry goods, flatbed trailers for larger items such as racks of oak barrels, and specialized warehouse space. Redwood Empire Wine Storage’s 70,000-square-foot base of operations at 4325 Santa Rosa Ave. has 30,000 square feet that are temperature controlled and configured for direct-to-consumer shipments.
“That’s really a huge feather in the cap that we didn’t have before,” said Jonathan Yandell, vice president of business development.
The Benicia and Fairfield facilities are set up more for large-volume storage and logistics. Full pallets of the same type of wine move into the warehouse then out to trucks bound for distributors.
By contrast, the Santa Rosa facility is designed for club and e-commerce shipments, storing wine so that staff can pick individual bottles for orders shipped to consumers.
“You now have a third-party logistics firm partner that can handle all your operations under one family of brands,” Yandell said.
San Francisco Fort Point Capital Partners financed the acquisition, which closed Dec. 19, 2023.
Jeff Quackenbush covers wine, construction and real estate. Reach him at jquackenbush@busjrnl.com or 707-521-4256.
