EDNA VALLEY IS A FOLKSY CENTRAL COAST WINE REGION, BUT IT IS GROWING AND GAINING RECOGNITION RAPIDLY.

Byline: Eric Noland Travel Editor

At Claiborne & Churchill Vintners, in a building made of straw, Clay Thompson's left hand was stained dark red as he greeted visitors recently. He'd been ``punching down the cap'' on a batch of syrah grapes in the back of the room, and the crushing tool - a stainless steel foot on the end of a long pole - tends to get a bit messy.

Not far away, at the Laverne winery - a small warehouse in a commercial area - Pete Cron was busy testing the properties of some wine grapes he'd just purchased, and deftly wielded beakers, eye droppers and other items. He did all of this one-handed, because it was his turn to watch his 20-month-old daughter, Mary, who wriggled in the crook of his left arm as he worked.

If you've been put off by the corporate feel of such well-established wine regions as the Napa Valley, there's an emerging sliver of wine country along California's Central Coast that might be for you. It's the Edna Valley, which stretches south of San Luis Obispo. It's decidedly mom-and-pop - literally, in some cases.

The area, about 200 miles north of Los Angeles, didn't see its first planting of commercial grapes until the early 1970s, but in recent years it has experienced exponential growth, joining wine regions throughout the state that are scurrying to quench suburbia's seemingly boundless thirst for fine varietal wine.

This area - which is generally grouped with adjacent Arroyo Grande Valley and nearby Saucelito Canyon - is no more than a dozen miles long and perhaps four miles wide, but it is now home to 2,100 acres of vineyards and 21 wine labels, eight of which maintain tasting rooms (six others operate by appointment only). Its grapes have been snapped up by such major wine players as Robert Mondavi, Au Bon Climat and Kendall-Jackson.

Even for travelers who aren't wine drinkers, it is probably worth a detour just for the scenery. Highway 227 curls east and then north from U.S. 101, winding through rolling hills of vineyards and grassy slopes dotted with ancient, gnarled oaks. Low coastal mountains rim the scene at one edge and morning fog from Pismo Beach creeps in from the other.

Grapes - notably chardonnay and pinot noir - positively love it.

``There is unique geography along this part of the coast - and this also includes Santa Ynez and Santa Maria,'' said Phillip Doub, an agribusiness professor at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo who coordinates the school's 5-month-old minor course of study in wine and viticulture. ``There are east-west valleys with no ridges between the ocean and where the grapes are grown. Napa, Sonoma, other valleys run north-south. They don't have a window to the ocean . . . That window allows cooling and a longer growing season.''

Grapes that do better without the chill - cabernet sauvignon, merlot, zinfandel - don't fare particularly well here, but the market for pinot noir and chardonnay doesn't show any signs of slackening, and this region is doing its part to fill it.

According to the California Agricultural Statistics Service, San Luis Obispo County had 6,456 acres planted in vineyards 10 years ago. By last year, that figure had jumped to 14,847 - more than double in less than a decade.

``Every damn fool wants to start a winery,'' said Thompson. ``Every ex-professor, or whatever.''

The words were delivered with tongue firmly in cheek. Thompson is an ex-professor, an accomplished one. He holds a doctorate in Scandinavian studies from Harvard and is conversant in five languages. But his teaching job at the University of Michigan was wearing on him as he reached age 40 in 1981, he said.

On a vacation trip to the Central Coast, he and his wife, Fredericka, visited Edna Valley Vineyard. They didn't want to leave. And didn't.

Thompson resigned his position and got a job as a cellar worker at the winery, then began asking a lot of questions. Just two years later, the Claiborne & Churchill label was launched (the name combines his first name and her maiden name). The winery is now housed in a post-and-beam structure with walls of rice-straw bales on Carpenter Canyon Road.

The husband-wife team produces just under 5,000 cases a year, and visitors to the tasting room are advised to keep an open mind. These winemakers take white varietals that are customarily produced as sweet wines - gewurztraminer, muscat, riesling - and tweak the process to create drier wines from them.

European visitors to the winery are often startled when the disheveled, grape-stained American behind the counter begins speaking to them in their native tongue - especially if they've just been talking to each other about him in German, Swedish, Norwegian, French or Italian.

The abrupt career change was the result of ``burning out on teaching and the politics of university life,'' Thompson said. ``I jokingly say I started my own business so I wouldn't have to go to any more committee meetings.''

Stories like this one abound in this burgeoning wine region.

Laverne Vineyards is owned by brothers Don and Pete Cron, refugees from the Los Angeles area. Pete, who grew up in Granada Hills and attended Hart High School in Newhall, came to the area in the late 1970s to study crop science at Cal Poly.

``I always wanted to be a farmer, I just didn't know what,'' he said. ``Then I worked for a winery.''

The brothers own 2-1/2 acres near Atascadero, planted in cabernet sauvignon grapes. They buy the rest from local vineyards, and produce their modest output - 1,200 cases annually - out of rented warehouse space in San Luis Obispo's southern commercial district.

A price list on the wall advises that Laverne's '97 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon, priced at $32 a bottle, is limited to two per customer. ``We only make 40 cases,'' Pete Cron said. ``Most of that goes to the family or the guy who prints our labels for us (in exchange for wine).''

Another winery, Seven Peaks, uses as its tasting room a former one-room schoolhouse, built in 1908. As you sample the wines, you look out across the valley through the rippled, antique glass of the windows.

Not all of the wineries in the Edna Valley are quaint and unassuming.

Edna Valley Vineyard, the senior player in the region, bottles 100,000 cases a year, 90 percent of it chardonnay. It maintains a big, modern tasting room, gift shop and patio picnic area on a hill in the heart of the valley. The view to the north out the picture windows of the tasting room takes in the infinite rows of the Niven family's Paragon Vineyard.

The Nivens got all of this started. After operating a successful grocery chain in the San Francisco area, they planted the valley's first commercial grapes in the early 1970s. Today the family farms 700 acres and co-owns Edna Valley Vineyard, which it founded.

Another winery worth a visit is Talley Vineyards, which lies in the south end of the region in the Arroyo Grande Valley. After Au Bon Climat of the Santa Ynez Valley had success with Talley grapes, the vineyard began making exceptional wines of its own.

Wine Spectator magazine gave Talley's 1996 Chardonnay Arroyo Grande Valley a rating of 90 (on a scale of 100). Another exceptional wine encountered on a recent visit was Talley's 1997 Pinot Noir Arroyo Grande Valley ($28 at the winery).

For devotees of sparkling wine, there is Laetitia Estate Wines (formerly Maison Deutz), just south of Arroyo Grande on U.S. 101. It concentrates on the wines that do well here - pinot noir, chardonnay, pinot blanc. But it also uses the same grapes to make sparkling wines - 5 to 10 percent of its production, according to Tim Deller, who conducts tours of the grounds by appointment.

The sparkling wines were found to be sensational, particularly the 1992 Elegance Reserve ($23), made primarily from chardonnay grapes and so delightfully dry it seems to dissolve on your tongue before you can swallow it.

Laetitia's picnic site is one of the best in the region, offering 360-degree views.

Edna Valley's labels may not be household names in Southern California, but several of them market to the area and can be found in eclectic wine shops.

One name that is probably more familiar is Corbett Canyon Vineyards - but only because it uses a gimmicky, square bottle and has saturated the radio market with commercials that employ an annoying echo and jingle. Corbett Canyon, which does not maintain a tasting room, buys most of its grapes from the Central Valley, according to the Edna Valley Arroyo Grande Valley Vintners' Association.

Travelers wishing to sample what the region has to offer might want to plan a trip to coincide with the ninth annual Harvest Celebration, to be held Nov. 5-7 at Biddle Regional Park in rural land east of Arroyo Grande (3500 Lopez Drive). The festival will feature gourmet food, wine tasting, barrel tastings and auctions, with all area wineries participating. Information and tickets: [phone].

On your drive into the region, you're likely to see numerous signs of booming enterprise. There are hillsides with new vine plantings - not even knee-high - as vintners undertake the patient, five-year wait for the plants to produce viable fruit. There are hillsides that have been newly skinned for future plantings. There are winery buildings under construction - including a new barrel room at Talley, for example.

Wine production along this area of the Central Coast is growing at a mind-boggling rate, all in an attempt to keep pace with consumer demand. Soon, mom and pop might have to start taking on extra workers and scouting out more production space.

Thompson notes that when he left academia 18 years ago, Edna Valley pinot noir grapes were selling for $800 a ton. Now they're commanding $2,500.

``It's just burgeoned in the last 10-15 years,'' said Cal Poly's Doub, who noted that wine grapes have emerged as the county's No. 1 agricultural enterprise, ``passing cattle and broccoli.''

``The premium and ultra-premium price segments in the wine industry have just expanded greatly,'' he added. ``Some of the price increases have just been amazing. It's the economy, stupid. If you're going to smoke a $20 cigar, you've got to have a $50 bottle of wine to go with it.''

A TASTE OF EDNA VALLEY

Eight wineries in the Edna Valley maintain public tasting rooms.

Claiborne & Churchill: 2649 Carpenter Canyon Road. Open daily from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Phone: [phone].

Cottonwood Canyon: 4330 Santa Fe Road. Open Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Phone: [phone].

Edna Valley Vineyard: 2585 Biddle Ranch Road. Open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Phone: [phone].

Laetitia Vineyard: 453 Deutz Drive. Open daily from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. (From May 31 through Labor Day, open daily from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.) Phone: [phone].

Laverne Vineyards: 3490 Sacramento Drive. Open Saturday and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. Phone: [phone].

Seven Peaks: 5828 Orcutt Road. Open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Phone: [phone].

Talley Vineyards: 3031 Lopez Drive. Open daily from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; closed Tuesday and Wednesday from October through May. Phone: [phone]. (Note: Saucelito Canyon wines are available for tasting at the Talley winery.)

Windemere: 3482 Sacramento Drive. Open Thursday through Sunday, 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Phone: [phone].

INFORMATION: For general information on the region, contact the Edna Valley Arroyo Grande Valley Vintners Association. Phone: [phone]. Web: www.thegrid.net/vintners.

CAPTION(S):

5 Photos, box, map

PHOTO (1 -- 2 -- color) The idyllic scenery of the Edna Valley wine country along California's Central Coast is epitomized by Talley Vineyards, top, where chardonnay vines cover the rolling hills. At Windemere's headquarters, above, Jenny Coatley perches on the edge of bins of zinfandel grapes to crush them.

(3 -- color) Tim Deller surveys stacks of oak barrels in the cellar of Laetitia Vineyard, just south of Arroyo Grande. The winery specializes in pinot noir, chardonnay and pinot blanc wines.

(4) Clay Thompson ``punches down the cap'' on a batch of syrah grapes using a specially customized tool. Thompson, a former university professor, operates the Claiborne & Churchill winery in the Edna Valley.

(5) Former Granada Hills resident Pete Cron checks the properties of some grapes he purchased for Laverne Vineyards, the tiny winery he operates with his brother, Don, at the south end of San Luis Obispo.

Eric Noland/Travel Editor

Box: A Taste of Edna Valley (see text)

Map: Edna Valley