MAKE ROOM ON THE SHELF; PROOF SEEN IN SINGLE-MALT WHISKY LINES.

Byline: Gregory J. Wilcox Daily News Staff Writer

You won't find 99 beers on the wall at the Wine & Liquor Depot in Van Nuys.

But you can peruse about 550 brands of single-malt Scotch whisky - ranging in price from about $16 to $7,000 and in age from relatively young to venerable - lining the store's shelves and in the case of the latter locked in a vault.

It's enough variety in a decidedly esoteric niche market to give store owner Howard Meister bragging rights to the largest supply of single malt in America, or maybe even the world. A camera crew from the BBC, as in British Broadcasting Corp., even dropped by recently to pay homage to the unpretentious shop that draws customers from around the world.

So can Meister fit a couple more brands on his crowded shelves?

``Oh, absolutely, sure,'' he said with a chuckle, adding that with new shelving his selection can be expanded to 600 brands.

This is good news for Lloyd Grant Gordon, the urbane brand manager for Glenfiddich and The Balvenie single malt scotches from William Grant & Sons Inc., because the company is bringing two new products to market this month.

And they are made in a rather nontraditional scotch-making way.

The new lines, or ``expressions'' as some aficionados refer to different products from the same distillery, are a 15-year-old Glenfiddich Solera Reserve and an 18-year-old Glenfiddich Ancient Reserve, expected to retail for about $48 and $64 a bottle, respectively.

At these kinds of prices, Solera and Ancient Reserve won't be for everybody, but then scotch is not a taste at home on every palate, acknowledges Gordon, a member of the fifth generation of the Grant family.

``We plan to market it to scotch drinkers and people who like the finer things in life,'' he said during a recent visit to Los Angeles and an impromptu tasting at Bob Burns restaurant in Woodland Hills.

Single malt scotch is so named because it comes from the same distillery. Blended scotch is made by mixing several single malts with spirits made from other grains.

The Glenfiddich Soleras are based on the traditional method of sherry production first created in Jerez, Spain. The key to the system is the solera vat, which can hold about 5,000 gallons of scotch but is always kept about half full. The malt master selects three 15-year-old Glenfiddich single malts from traditional oak casks, new oak casks and sherry casks and marries them with the scotch in the solera vat.

The result is a single malt scotch that can be sipped like a fine brandy, with the 18-year-old showing hints of vanilla and honey.

``This is not innovation for innovation's sake,'' Gordon said of the solera process. ``This is something that Glenfiddich drinkers would expect from a family that does things a little differently. And it's all about brand building too, reaching out to the customer.''

The company has a lot of competition. About 95 percent of the scotch produced is marketed as blended scotch consumers might be familiar with. But bottlers can buy a barrel of scotch from distilleries still operating or those that have been shuttered, package the contents and ship it to retailers as a single malt. That's why there can be so many single malts when there's only about 90 scotch distillers in Scotland.

John Hansell, editor and publisher of The Malt Advocate Magazine, a trade publication based in Emmaus, Pa., thinks the industry might be getting to the point where the consumer might just have too much to reach for in stores like Meister's.

``I think it's getting crowded,'' he said of the market. ``It's getting to the point where I think there is going to have to be an end sometime soon to the expansion. You could be getting to the point where the consumer might be getting overwhelmed.''

Consumers might be, but not Meister.

He's been in the business about 40 years, and most recently owned the Gourment Pantry on Ventura Boulevard in Encino. Five years ago, he decided to stop being a full-line store and concentrate on discounting, which prompted the move to Van Nuys.

He'd already developed a taste for single malt and was selling about 100 varieties then.

As new ones come on the market they usually end up on his shelves. Meister advertises his selection in the Malt Advocate and does a brisk mail-order business.

``The bottles run from the sublime to the ridiculous,'' he said of the prices. ``But the value increases on a lot of these scotches. They become collectors items and are sold and resold. Some we have sold for $350 a bottle and are now bringing in $1,200 and $1,500 from collectors. It's like wine.''

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2 Photos

PHOTO (1--Color) Store owner Howard Meister sells about 550 brands of single-malt Scotch whisky - ranging up to $7,000 in price.

Evan Yee/Daily News

(2--Color) Lloyd Grant Gordon is bringing two new single-malt products to market.

Tom Mendoza/Daily News