Sonoma County’s ConeTech is recognized in WINnovation Awards for new ways to lower, remove alcohol

Editor’s note: Wine Industry Network recognizes notable beverage alcohol-related companies for WINnovation Awards during the Business Journal’s annual Wine, Spirits + Beer Industry Awards.

Consumers’ desire for a healthy lifestyle has created a strong trend for low- and nonalcoholic beverages that could result in falling market share for wine, but ConeTech has a solution. It has developed GoLo, an affordable, energy-efficient adaptive technology that enables the dealcoholization of beverages to 0.05% and allows, in a single pass, the recovery and retention of 100% of the products’ original aromas and flavor compounds.

Wine brands that want to enter this market segment can do so without sacrificing the quality of their product.

ConeTech built off its existing low-temperature distillation technology and paired it with the engineering and distillation expertise of South Africa-based Logichem to develop the GoLo technology.

In addition to the improved efficiency of the technology, they also improved the analytics of the finished dealcoholized wines to reduce the finishing work necessary to produce low- and nonalcoholic beverages. The result is a more efficient process and higher quality end product.

“Our excitement is also due in part to the timing of this recognition, which not only coincides with ABT’s recent rollout of GoLo in North America, but also with the rapidly growing trend of products whose quality will be enhanced by this new technology,” ConeTech CEO Jerome Nathan says, “including low alcohol/low-calorie lifestyle wines and beers, and no-alcohol wines and beers.”

Wineries and breweries around the world are already taking advantage of this technology. And as the health and wellness trend grows, more wine brands might consider entering this market segment without risking the quality of their products and brand.

“What they do is pretty incredible,” Anderson Brewing Consultation’s Chris Anderson says of GoLo. “The main piece being that they can actually build back a constituent of the beer and the essence stream — it’s pretty amazing in what it actually retains.”

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