Tracking the supplier exodus from RNDC CA

If you’re reading this, you already know: Republic National Distributing Company is beating a hasty retreat from California. After hemorrhaging major beverage-alcohol firms’ distribution rights in the Golden State through the first half of 2025, earlier this month the country’s second-largest wine and spirits wholesaler confirmed plans to “withdraw” from the market entirely. I broke that news, and have been tracking the story ever since.

With roughly two months to go until RNDC CA is no more, there are major questions looming about what will happen to its employees, assets, and suppliers in the state. I’m reporting on all of the above; if you have tips, please send them to me. But this piece is focused on tracking the supplier exodus from RNDC CA. As it stands, the situation for beverage-alcohol producers that had been distributed by the doomed wholesaler is basically that Semisonic lyric: “you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.” Everybody that had routed product to Californian markets through RNDC’s warehouses has to find a new distribution partner (or stand up a self-distribution operation, in the case of winemakers; distillers can’t) or face the prospect of being shut out of the country’s biggest retail market for booze.

The company’s California price book is 100 pages long. A lot of small producers are unlikely to find new distribution in California, given the tough state of the wine industry and the whip hand RNDC CA has given its soon-to-be-former competitors in the state’s middle tier. Many of the biggest producers have already jumped ship. For the mid-majors, this moment is a bit like musical chairs, with collective billions of dollars in annual revenue in the balance.

To better understand how the California bev-alc landscape is changing, Fingers is maintaining a running list of confirmed supplier departures, and their destinations. Check it out below.

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