Wine Casks Amid the Grease Racks : Ahern Vintages Age in Urban Setting, Win Critics’ Praise

Down the road from an auto wrecker, next to a garage that rebuilds engines, Jim Ahern makes expensive wines that are praised by prominent critics.

The story of the Ahern Winery in the Roydon Industrial Complex in San Fernando is filled with anomalies. Ahern, 49, a former industrial pipe fitter who retains his Bronx patois, is a hefty chili-and-beer type. He says the judges who taste his wines are “just a little bit snooty.”

Although many of the world’s finest wineries are part of country estates with sweet-smelling vineyards, plenty of excellent vintages come from gray urban areas, close to the distributors who buy wine and the people who drink it, wine critics say.

There are about half a dozen wineries in the Los Angeles area, three of them in Inglewood, according to the Wine Institute, a San Francisco-based trade group. Ahern’s is the only one in the San Fernando Valley, an institute spokesman said.

As do many other urban-area wineries, the Ahern Winery buys handpicked premium grapes from vineyards in valleys throughout California and trucks them to the city to be crushed and fermented.

In this way, the problems of bad crops and overproduction endemic to agricultural businesses are avoided, Ahern said, and the wine maker is left to buy the best grapes he can at the lowest price. Then he has the fun of putting his name on the label.

Having fun, however, doesn’t mean making money. Ahern said he adds a healthy markup to each bottle of wine--$3 a bottle, for instance, on his Chardonnay, a product the wine editor of Bon Appetit magazine called “distinctive, assertive and strongly individualistic.”

But Ahern said he still has not recouped his initial investment. He hopes the 7-year-old business will finally have paid him back by next year.

A competitor estimates that Ahern spent about $500,000 on a state-of-the-art crusher, storage tanks, French oak barrels and bottling machinery. Ahern confirmed the figure but would not say how a former foreman of a pipe-fitting crew was able to raise the money. He did say that he has a partner and that all the equipment was purchased with cash.

The Ahern Winery couldn’t afford to make cheap stuff, even if its owner wanted to. Because its volume is so low--5,000 cases a year, selling at around $60 for each 12-bottle case wholesale--Ahern wines must sell at a premium to bring in much income.

Ahern said he figures he needs to sell 6,000 to 10,000 cases a year to be in good shape financially. He said his production capacity is nearly 10,000 cases a year and that he is producing as much as he can sell.

Ahern said he crushes from 90 to 120 tons of grapes each year. He buys most of the grapes from vineyards in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, but also buys from Ventura County and Napa Valley growers.

First Batches ‘Undrinkable’

A fan of wines since his days in Europe with the Navy, Ahern started making wine 13 years ago when his wife bought him a five-gallon kit from a department store. The first batches were “completely undrinkable,” he said.

But Ahern developed his skills by attending wine-making classes and taking trips to the Napa Valley. Soon, he said, a spare bedroom of his Van Nuys home was crammed with racks of barrels filled with fermenting wine.

In 1978, Ahern’s first year in business at the San Fernando winery, he produced only 600 cases because of the time it takes for the wine to ferment. His whites age for six months in barrels. Reds age for 18 months. This year, Ahern is producing five kinds of wine: Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Zinfandel, Gamay Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon.

The Chardonnay retails for between $10 and $12 a bottle. The Cabernet costs around $9 per bottle, while the Sauvignon Blanc and Zinfandel sell for about $7.50 a bottle.

Sold to Wholesaler

Each bottle is sold to a wholesaler, Victoire Imports of Richmond, Calif., for about half of the retail price. Ahern said his cost per bottle is about half of wholesale, or roughly $3 for a bottle of Chardonnay.

The distributor gets Ahern’s wines into fashionable restaurants in cities, including Los Angeles, Chicago and New York, as well as into wine shops. But Southern California, the biggest market for wines in the nation, according to the Wine Institute, is where most of Ahern’s wines are sold.

Ahern works alone, except during peak harvest periods when he takes on some extra help. Like many small operations, the Ahern Winery was only managed part time in its early years. Ahern, who now lives in Canyon Country, retired from his pipe-fitting job three years ago, a luxury the owners of few small wineries can afford.

John Daume, for example, owns a shop for wine-making hobbyists in Woodland Hills to help support his 2,000 case-a-year Daume Winery in Camarillo. Daume said other low-volume wine makers in the Los Angeles area include a pilot for a major airline, and executives in the computer and aluminum industries.

‘Passion’ for Grape

Robert M. Parker Jr., author and publisher of the Wine Advocate, a Parkton, Md., journal for wine enthusiasts, said American wineries often are run by hobbyists who decide to get serious about wine-making. “They’re passionate enough about the grape to risk everything,” he said.

European wineries are more likely to be passed on through a family from generation to generation, he said.

Describing Ahern’s Chardonnay, Parker called it “rich, full-bodied, toasty.” He also said he liked it a lot.

Another critic, Anthony Dias Blue, the wine editor of Los Angeles-based Bon Appetit, who also praised the Chardonnay, said Ahern’s wines “stack up against some of the best European wines.”

“I don’t care where they come from.”