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September 2015 WINES&VINES 21 WINE INDUSTRY NEWS N apa, Calif.—This year Trinchero Family Estates is celebrating the 40th anniver- sary of the inaugural release of its white Zinfandel wine. The pink, slightly sweet wine was pretty much lightning in a bottle for the once-small, family-owned winery that had just been getting by since brothers John and Mario Trinchero bought Sutter Home Winery in 1948. Since its almost instant success, the Trin- cheros have sold $6 billion worth of white Zinfandel and still sell between 3 million and 3.5 million cases of the wine per year, said the company's president and CEO Bob Torkelson, who was the keynote speaker at the July 23 summer conference of the California Associa- tion of Winegrape Growers in Napa. Torkelson has been at the helm of the com- pany, which is still owned by the Trinchero fam- ily, since 2004. Today, Trinchero has more than 35 Califor- nia wine brands, and its products are sold in 50 countries. Trinchero sold 18.8 million cases in 2014, placing No. 5 on Wine Business Month- ly's most recent top 30 wine producers list by U.S. case sales. Torkelson said Trinchero currently employs 1,800 people, 1,600 of whom are in California. He said the company's massive Westside winemaking facility near Lodi, Calif., will soon be fully operational. The 850,000-square-foot facility can process 100,000 tons of grapes, and three high-speed bottling lines can accommo- date all of Trinchero's various bottle sizes and package types. The new facility also brings the company's entire Sutter Home production to one location, eliminating thousands of truck trips up and down congested Highway 29 in the heart of Napa Valley. The warehouse is a modern automated facil- ity with 90-foot-high ceilings that can accom- modate nine-high pallet stacks for a total of 72,000 pallets (or 4 million cases of wine). As new products make up nearly a quarter of U.S. wine consumption, Torkelson said Trin- chero has sought to keep innovating its prod- ucts. He said the company was the first to introduce 187ml bottles and now controls more than half of the market. Its non-alcoholic wine Fre continues to be successful, and the surging popularity of red blends shows no sign of abating. The company acquired the Ménage à Trois brand in 2004, when it totaled about 24,000 cases; today, Trinchero sells more than 3 million cases of the wine. He said he expects red blends to stay hot for some time, and Trin- chero released Ménage à Trois Midnight—a dark red blend—in August 2014. Going forward, Torkelson said there could be potential with Sauvignon Blanc, Sangria beverages, and "unoaked Chardonnays seem to resonate well with consumers today." —Andrew Adams Forty Years and $6 Billion of White Zinfandel The new Trinchero facility near Lodi, Calif., can process 100,000 tons of grapes.