As Summer Heat and Harvest Pressures Rise, BevZero Equipment Gives Winemakers a Way to Fight Back

PolarClad tank insulation, VinFoil mixers, and ClearAlc dealcoholization technology tackle the forces reshaping the wine industry.

SANTA ROSA, CA, UNITED STATES, July 21, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Winemakers are facing a harvest problem that has nothing to do with the vines. As summer temperatures climb across California and other major wine regions, wine tanks heat up right along with the vineyards, forcing wineries to run refrigeration harder and longer just to hold onto the quality they worked all year to grow. BevZero, the Santa Rosa-based global leader in alcohol and flavor management, is helping producers take that control back with equipment built for temperature management and technology built for a changing market.

"One of the biggest challenges [winemakers] have is dealing with ambient temperature, which is out of their control," said Todd Dicello, BevZero's sales manager for the PolarClad tank insulation division. "Any way that they can improve temperature variation and stratification in the tank is important."

That variation, heat pooling at the top of a tank while the bottom stays cool, is what BevZero's equipment line is designed to close. PolarClad, an R-12 thermal barrier BevZero distributes in the U.S. (BevClad in Europe), reduces ambient heat gain into a tank by as much as 96.5%. Dicello described a tank farm sitting outside on a hot August day in Sonoma County, chillers running full bore just to keep up. "As soon as you put the insulation on, it's going to help you get there much quicker, and you can maintain it," he said.

Paired with insulation, BevZero also distributes the VinFoil tank mixer, built by CPE. VinFoil moves large volumes of wine gently, using an impeller designed to maximize flow and minimize turbulence, and it reaches cold stabilization roughly three times faster than pump-based mixing, with average energy savings of more than 80%. "By mixing a tank, you can keep the temperature the same at the top, the middle, and the bottom," Dicello said. "It's designed to move a ton of product efficiently, and it does it very gently."

Together, the two systems attack the same problem from different angles: PolarClad slows how fast heat gets into the tank, and VinFoil clears out the swings that build up once it does. For wineries watching energy bills climb with their thermometers, BevZero's equipment combination targets both the quality risk and the cost of a hot season at once.

A Second Pressure Point: What's Actually in the Bottle
Rising temperatures aren't the only thing changing the way wine gets made. Consumer demand for lower-alcohol and non-alcoholic wine keeps growing.

"Because of the temperatures, we are seeing that the acidities in the wines are lower and lower," said Sylvia Cedeno Daguerre, BevZero's managing director and an enologist by training. "It's playing a big role on the pH and freshness of the wine." Lower acid and higher heat tend to move together, adding another layer to an already difficult season. Cedeno Daguerre pointed to alcohol adjustment as one tool producers can use to respond, dialing in freshness and balance even when the fruit itself is working against them.

That's where BevZero's ClearAlc dealcoholization equipment comes in. Manufactured by Tomsa Destil and distributed exclusively by BevZero, ClearAlc uses a single-pass vacuum distillation process that can reduce alcohol to as low as 0.05% ABV, or rectify the alcohol fraction back up to 92% ABV, depending on the goal. This system won the 2025 WINnovation Award for its approach to wine dealcoholization.

"The trick for any of us, and anybody with any technology trying to do this, is how you remove alcohol without losing the quality, the flavor, the aroma," Dicello said. "Anybody can remove alcohol, but you've got to have an end product that's close to what people were actually searching for. That's where ClearAlc separates itself from everybody else."
Dicello was direct about where the category is headed. "At the end of the day, wine's not going anywhere. We're going to see both alcoholic and non-alcoholic products moving forward."

Managing What You Can, When The Weather Won't Cooperate
The throughline across BevZero's equipment lineup is control. Wineries can't set the temperature outside, and they can't decide how a hot growing season affects sugar and acid in the fruit. What they can control is how their tanks respond to that heat and how their finished wine responds to changing consumer demand. PolarClad and VinFoil address the first problem. ClearAlc addresses the second, giving producers a way to protect quality through a hot harvest while staying flexible enough to meet a market that increasingly wants lower-alcohol and alcohol-free options.

About BevZero
BevZero is a global leader in beverage services, equipment, expertise, and innovative solutions—helping brands create the highest quality low- and non-alcoholic beverages across wine and spirits, with a one-stop approach from brainstorm to bottle.

BevZero has worked in this space for more than 30 years, since founder Tony Dann pioneered a vacuum distillation process for alcohol removal in wine in 1991. The company operates facilities in Santa Rosa, California; Villatobas, Spain; and Wellington, South Africa, with a team of winemakers, brewers, distillers, and food scientists supporting clients across all three regions.

Devin Halliday
WSI Smart Marketing
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