Vivadour launched Chai Sobre, the first French center of excellence in dealcoholized wine in partnership with leading specialiaed brand Moderato

Paris – CFI advised Vivadour in the creation of an upstream-downstream partnership with Moderato to create Chai Sobre, the first center of excellence for wine dealcoholization in France.

Born in 1992 from the merger of three Gers cooperatives, Vivadour brings people together to carry out common, competitive projects in the face of the economic, environmental and political realities which affect rural areas and its farmers and has invested in the plant, animal and wine sectors.

Vivadour today represents 4,800 farmers with 775 employees for a 2022-2023 turnover of €596m.

The wine and spirits activity represents 240 winegrowers for 196,000 hectoliters produced in 2022 for a turnover of €48m (70% wine and 30% spirits – Club des Marques representing the main Armagnac brands such as Clés Des Ducs or Sempé with 2 distilleries).

The Vivadour Cooperative Group is now entering the No-Low wine market through a partnership with Moderato.

This partnership first translates into a supply contract for IGP Côtes de Gascogne wines, a PDO in which Vivadour is the leader (bulk sales), for the development of new Moderato vintages.

This partnership also results in the creation of a new subsidiary, Le Chai Sobre, the first center of excellence for de-alcoholization in France, with an investment of €4m, as this kind of service was previously mainly subcontracted in Belgium and Germany.

Chai Sobre will have the capacity to process 100,000 hl/year by vacuum distillation and will implement ambitious research and development programs to improve the quality of alcohol-free wines. The subsidiary will offer the entire wine industry a laboratory and industrial de-alcoholization equipment by spring 2024 in the Gers site of Vic-Fezensac.

Founded in 2020 by Sébastien Thomas and Fabien Marchand-Cassagne, Moderato is a leading player in organic wines without alcohol (0.0%) and reduced alcohol (5.0%), “No-Low”.

Moderato was born with the ambition to offer dealcoholized wines not only to abstainers, but to all wine lovers who appreciate the taste and want to monitor their consumption so as not to suffer its side effects in line with consumption trends. A drop in alcohol consumption by c. 25% is indeed expected by 2035.

After three years of R&D thanks to the support of its historic shareholder, the investment fund Eutopia, Moderato has acquired a real know-how in product development and formulation, offering wines with organoleptic profiles recognized and praised by the greatest experts (Raymond Tomsons, ranked world best Sommelier in 2023).

As a multi-channel brand with around fifteen employees, Moderato distributes ranges of white, rosé, red and sparkling wines at 0.0% in more than 700 points of sale in France and abroad, notably in Canada and in Bahrain. The Company will market 100,000 bottles this year and is aiming for one million bottles in 2025.

This transaction closed on 3 January 2024.