DotCom technocrats and doctors and lawyers and real estate barons have bought their way into the Napa Valley in recent years on their second or third career iterations. Then, too, corporate consolidation has chomped its way through the territory like raving Pacmen on some weird computer game. What remains are but a few families – like so much carrion – who manage to raise their heads above the fray and bray so that they’ve outlasted the corporate onslaught.

The Trinchero (pronounced trin CARE o) family have been in the Napa Valley since 1947 – the same year that Jackie Robinson broke in to the majors and just two years after the war in Europe. It’s true that the Trinchero’s – from Asti, Italy, via New York City – did well for themselves, having serendipitously created a whole new category of wine and rising to become the nation’s sixth largest winery company.

The Trincheros have certainly become savvy businesspeople and have also gained respect for their community involvement. But in all this time, while producing vast oceans of White Zinfandel, the Trincheros have hardly made a dent to high-brow quality. Although engulfed in an area where $100 Cabernets – “real wine” according to the critical mavens – had become the quintessence of fashion, the Trincheros were the workingman’s friend.

Now, with a new brand name – Trinchero Napa Valley– in a new 22,000 square-foot facility on a 21-acre knoll north of St. Helena that until last year saw the footprint of the Folie à Deux Winery, the Trinchero family is attempting to put distance between themselves and perception. Hopefully then, and at long last, the name Trinchero will stand for quality among their peers, who heretofore may have viewed them as not having been worthy enough colleagues to be in their midst.

Before them, Bob Mondavi had failed to extricate himself from his lower end wines, thus contributing to the loss of his winery. Francis Coppola apparently learned that lesson and crossed the proverbial Rubicon by shipping his less-thought-of wines over the Mayacamas Range to northern Sonoma. So too - in a move that has been slowly percolating - the Trincheros are attempting to strip away the yolk of mediocrity:

<>They’ve recently divested themselves of the huge Zinfandel Lane facility south of St. Helena, which will come into the hands of Joel Gott, who has formed a partnership with the Trincheros in the wildly successful – but still low-end – Three Thieves brand.

<> They’ve recently bought the Napa Cellars tasting room north of Yountville from Rich Frank and Koerner Rombauer, where $14-$20 Trinchero Family Wines will be made by winemaker Joe Shirley, who moves down the road from the Sutter Home Main Street facility. He’ll also make wines for the $20 Folie à Deux brand as well as Ménage a Trois ($10-$12).

<> Much of the south St. Helena winery will become headquarters for the company’s sales and marketing force.

<> A production site in Lodi, which will produce almost all of the company’s 11 million cases annually, will house several entities including Sutter Home, Trinity Oaks, Sycamore Lane and several Australian brands. (The Montevina brand will continue to be produced in Amador County.)

<> The high-end luxury brand in 100-case six-bottle lots called Trinchero Napa Valley, made from red Bordeaux varieties that will range from $50 to $100, will be made by Mario Monticelli, who worked with Phillipe Melka and was the winemaker at Quixote Winery.

Monticelli will source his grapes from the 13-acre estate vineyard at the former Folie à Deux site, and from several new vineyards, that include Haystack on Atlas Peek and a vineyard on Mount Veeder that the Trincheros recently added to their growing portfolio. From here, Trinchero NV plans to produce single vineyard, single AVA wines.

In all, the Trincheros control nearly 5,500 acres over 20 vineyards - with nearly 60 percent planted to Zinfandel (35 percent) and Chardonnay (25) - that stretch across 10 California AVAs from Glenn County in the north to Santa Barbara. It may be the largest combined holding of vineyard land in the state.

Bob Torres, who is Trinchero’s senior vice president of operations, spoke to me about his family’s recent changes that he hopes will bring prestige at last to the family business. As with his uncle Bob Trinchero, Torres laments the notion that the company is not held in higher esteem, as it relates to quality, among its peers in the Napa Valley.