WINE BY THE YARD AT-HOME VINTNERS CULTIVATING VINES IN THE VALLEY.

Byline: Dana Bartholomew Staff Writer

HIDDEN HILLS - For wine connoisseur Harlan Gibbs, it wasn't enough to have 500 bottles of premier vintages stashed in a temperature-controlled storage locker.

He longed for his own label - a wine created from grapes tended in his own back yard. So the medical doctor by training put his scientific mind to work. He staked 100 heat-resistant cabernet vines on the hill behind his Hidden Hills home. He read winemaking books, watched winemaking videos and even signed up for an Internet course in oenology - the science of making wine.

And after five years, it's finally time to bottle the first batch of Chateau Gibbs.

``I dipped a sterile syringe in there last night,'' said Gibbs, a Harvard-trained doctor who is the emergency room director at Glendale Adventist Medical Center. ``We tasted it. My wife said it was oaky. I said it was fine.

``Good color. Not cloudy. Smells good. ... I'm thrilled to beat the band.''

In order to offer the best wines at table, it's no longer enough to have a well-stocked cellar. Urban wine connoisseurs around the San Fernando Valley are now staking backyard vineyards and producing their very own cabernets, merlots and succulent syrahs.

Only these aren't the vast rows of grape varietals romanticized in the Academy Award-winning ``Sideways,'' or even the rising commercial wine phenoms of Michael McCarty, Rosenthal-The Malibu Estate and Semler Malibu Estate.

They're meandering nests of a hundred or more vines visible from kitchen windows in Hidden Hills, Calabasas, Malibu and beyond.

``First it was ostriches, then llamas. And now vineyards are the big thing,'' said Thomas Booth, a West Hills viticulturist whose Vines to Wines business has planted and harvested more than 5,000 vines for local executives, developers and other wealthy clients.

``It's about status - and producing your own vintage.''

Standing among 531 cabernet sauvignon and zinfandel vines he just planted behind a sprawling home in Hidden Hills, Booth said such vineyards not only bring prestige to homeowners, but value to their properties.

While each vine explodes with green spring ``bud break,'' by fall growers hope for heavy clusters of deep-purple grapes.

The reward: at least a bottle of wine per vine - either made at home or custom crushed by commercial wineries in Camarillo, San Luis Obispo and elsewhere.

``It's kind of an ego thing, having your name on the bottle,'' said Mike Essrig, 45, who hired Booth to plant 500 cabernet and merlot vines at his former Calabasas spread as a tax write-off. ``It's a California thing.

``Let's tell the truth: that's what it's all about.''

While some aficionados may wag pinkies at their grape-loving friends, others say winemaking is a rewarding, if challenging, pastime.

The setup is fairly simple: a wine-grape crusher, fermenter, carboys for storage, yeast, and testing and bottling supplies. Homemade wine can be made from homegrown varietals, store-bought grapes or even grape juice.

At The Home Wine, Beer, and Cheesemaking Shop in Woodland Hills, which has sold brewing supplies since 1972, accouterments from $300 oak barrels to $600 motorized grape crushers greet the enthusiast.

``Now it's really taking off,'' said store owner John Daume, whose Daume Winery in Camarillo went from performing one custom crush for residential customers five years ago to more than 15 this year.

``Good grapes make good wine. These grapes coming out of Malibu and Hidden Hills are just exceptional. And so is the wine.''

The largest seller of grapevines in North America also reports a five- year spike in sales to homeowners in Southern California looking to add sweetness to fence lines and backyard plots.

``They have little harvest parties, that's always fun,'' said Steve Huffman, director of sales for Vintage Nurseries in Wasco, near Bakersfield. ``A grape stomp ... I think they do the do-si-do.''

Lynn ``L.A.'' Marzulli of Malibu and his family do.

Each year, the composer, musician and author of Christian sci-fi books cultivates 70 vines in Decker Canyon in preparation for a harvest wine- crushing party.

His daughters, ages 14 and 17, crush the grapes with their bare feet. Marzulli grills Italian sausage with his zesty marinara. And family members drink the fruits of the last year's crop.

``It's wonderful. I love it. It's a great hobby,'' said Marzulli, 54, picking up some French oak chips from Daume to season 20 gallons of homemade vino.

Gibbs got interested in wine when he noticed a $300 bottle of Calera Mount Harlan wine while skiing in the Midwest. Before long, he was an expert with a wine locker of his own.

He began growing his own grapes after noticing the acre of August berries planted by his neighbor. Last fall, his vines produced 400 pounds of ultra-sweet cabernets.

Today, he will cork the result of nearly five years' work - about 70 bottles of cabernet sauvignon.

And next month, during Passover, he will replace what he calls the ``kosher crud that passes for wine'' with his own delicacy.

``Do you know how much of a hoot this is?'' the silver-haired physician said. ``The real toast comes when there's a label on the bottle and I pop the cork and have a drink.''

Dana Bartholomew, [phone]

dana.bartholomew(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Viticulturist Thomas Booth checks on a vineyard he recently installed behind a Hidden Hills home. His business has planted and harvested more than 5,000 vines for local clients. ``It's about status - and producing your own vintage,'' he said.

(2 -- 4) Below left, Harlan Gibbs samples homemade wine. Above, Thomas Booth surveys a cabernet sauvignon vineyard in Hidden Hills. Below right, grape leaves surround a Valley fence.

Tina Burch/Staff Photographer