WINE A SELLER; VINTNER STOCK OFFERING ATTRACTS HEADY INTEREST.

Byline: Kenneth N. Gilpin The New York Times

Those not rendered punch-drunk by this month's market volatility may want to cast an eye on a new equity offering from Beringer Wine Estates, one of California's most acclaimed vintners.

Beringer went public Wednesday, a little less than two years after two private investment partnerships, Texas Pacific Group and Silverado Partners, bought the company from Nestle for an estimated $350 million. The oldest continuously operating winery in Napa Valley, Beringer was founded in 1876 and remained in family hands until 1971, when it was bought by Nestle.

Although it offers wines across the price spectrum, Beringer's biggest seller is its least expensive, a white zinfandel that retails for about $6 a bottle. For the 12 months that ended in June, sales of white zinfandel, a sweet blush wine, accounted for more than 40 percent of the company's $269.5 million in revenues.

But even though the bulk of Beringer's sales are of a product that many oenophiles might well call vin tres ordinaire, Beringer has won a number of honors.

In 1996, Wine Spectator magazine named eight of Beringer's wines to its list of the top 100 wines in the world, a record number for a wine company. And in June, Beringer was selected as ``the best overall winery in America'' in a survey conducted by Wine Spectator of more than 11,000 wine drinkers.

Stock analysts give the offering high marks, too, and demand for the 4.85 million shares was so strong the price increased 25 percent on this week's IPO, to 32-1/2. The underwriters - led by Goldman, Sachs - had already raised the expected range from its original $21-$23 to $26.

There's a lot to like about Beringer, analysts said. There is Beringer's strong lineup of premium wines, an expanding pool of so-called discerning wine drinkers and the fact that investors have not been offered a ``pure'' play in wine for several years, said David Menlow, president of IPO Financial Network in Springfield, N.J.

He also likes the fact that the company's current owners will retain 73 percent of the outstanding shares.

Menlow also has his worries, saying Beringer is overpriced at $26. Above that, ``I would start to get a little nervous, because that would be stretching the envelope a little far,'' he said.

Then there are the natural risks that all winemakers encounter, from drought to pests. Consider the experience of the Robert Mondavi Winery Corp., Beringer's only public competitor of comparable size. (The wine industry is highly fragmented; in Napa Valley alone, there are 500 wineries.)

Mondavi, which went public in June 1993 at $13.50 a share, has mostly done extremely well, trading this week in the mid-50s. But only weeks after the offering, its shares plunged when the company issued a string of disappointing earnings reports.

Although analysts now say the problem was related to a miscalculation at Mondavi about how quickly it could move its inventory, investors also focused on the infestation of phylloxera, a pest that feeds on grape stocks and causes vines to be unproductive, in Mondavi's vineyards.

Although phylloxera is clearly a risk, analysts said they did not now believe it would alter Beringer's revenue growth, which has risen at a compound annual rate of just over 14 percent for the last four fiscal years.

And demand for premium wine continues to grow. In 1980, shipments of premium California table wines amounted to 3.4 percent of total case volume.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos, Chart

Photo: (1--Color) Beringer Wine Estates produces wines for a range of tastes, from premium to a popular $6 bottle.

Phil McCarten/Daily News

(2--Color) No caption (Wine bottles)

Chart: (Color) UNCORKED

A quick look at Beringer Wines, which went public earlier this week.

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