Where the Fish Is Fresh and the Wine a Bargain : THE WINE : This is hardly a place where you would expect to find an award-winning list : By DAN BERGER

Let’s get this straight right at the front: The Olde Port Inn is no Lutece or Maxim’s or Taillevent. It is a blockhouse restaurant on a pier. There’s no valet to park your car. And don’t park underneath a roof eave . . . seagulls.

As you get out of the car, the smell that surrounds you is of fish. Fresh fish, of course. Fisherman Barry Cohen started this restaurant nearly two decades ago based on the idea that fish must be fresh to be good. The inn that serves his freshly caught seafood quickly became a local hangout for seafood lovers.

In the last few years, however, under the guidance of Barry’s son, Leonard, the Olde Port has become a destination for wine lovers from all over the state. That’s because the wine selection is so amazingly deep, and the prices so low.

In fact, a lot of people come into the restaurant, take a look at the wine list and ask if the prices are for half bottles.

If they were, they’d still be a bargain.

But the most amazing thing about this wine list isn’t just the pricing (which is just about retail for every wine on the list), it’s the fact that in many cases the Olde Port stocks multiple vintages of the same wine--and offers them all at the same price!

That means if you want a bottle of Hanzell Chardonnay, you may have the 1986, 1985 or 1984 for the same price: $24. If you’d like the Long Chardonnay, pick any vintage from 1982 through 1987. The price for any one of them is $24.

Other examples: Hanzell Pinot Noir, 1980 through 1984, $18; Chalone Pinot Noir, 1983 or 1984, $16; Duckhorn Merlot, 1985 or 1986, $18; Rombauer Cabernet, 1982 through 1986, $16.

Prices for other wines of which a single vintage are available are also very low: 1984 Matanzas Creek Merlot, $16; 1984 Mondavi Reserve Cabernet, $30 ($10 below retail!); 1981 Mayacamas Cabernet, $20; 1984 Laurel Glen Cabernet, $14.

For those really trying to watch the old wallet, there’s a half bottle of 1981 Rutherford Hill Merlot for $7.

Prices for the red wines are low, says Leonard Cohen, because as a seafood restaurant he sells mostly white wines. But all wine prices are low, and of the 250 selections, there are actually two dozen exceptional wines priced $10 or less (!), and another three dozen between $12 and $15.

The import list is just as bargain-filled, with stuff like 1985 Chateau Gruaud-Larose, $33; 1983 Chateau Figeac, $35; 1985 Chassagne-Montrachet, Laboure Roi, $30; and 1986 F. Chauvenet Pouilly-Fuisse, $16. (There aren’t many older bottlings of imported wines because Cohen is a staunch supporter of California wines, those from the Central Coast in particular.)

The list itself has no vintage dates. If you ask for a wine and don’t ask which vintage is available, you’ll get the current release. “But as we start talking with someone,” Leonard Cohen says, “we find out how much they know about wine, and if someone seems to know wine, we may suggest a specific vintage.”

This marks the 10th year that the younger Cohen has been in charge of his energetic and growing wine program. In addition to keeping tabs on this wine program, Cohen also runs the kitchen (he’s head chef) and does administrative work in the restaurant. Occasionally he waits on tables in his kitchen whites, never telling anyone who he is.

“I’ll be talking with someone from L.A. or San Francisco who thinks Leonard Cohen is this 50-year-old guy,” Cohen, 27, says. “They’ll ask me, ‘How does Leonard keep the wine prices this low?’ and I’ll say, ‘Leonard just wants me to sell great wines at a reasonable price to make you happy. That’ll make you come back, and that will keep this place in business.’ Then I see a little glow in these people’s eyes, and that really makes me excited.”

Cohen was just 18 when he took charge of the wine program. The first nine years the Olde Port Inn was in business, he says, “we had a standard, boring wine list, you know, Wente Blanc de Blanc, Wente Grey Riesling, Martini Zinfandel.” Then a newly hired busboy, Brad Bowdey, told Cohen: “I can make a better wine list.”

“He told me it would help the company,” Cohen says,” “So I told him if he’d teach me about wine, I’d let him do it. I couldn’t even legally taste any of the wines.”

Cohen and Bowdey, who eventually left the restaurant and opened the Central Coast Wine Exchange (a wine distributorship with offices in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties), assembled a creative list of wines. “But it cost a lot of money, and when Dad saw it,” Cohen says, “he just about hit the ceiling. He told us: ‘You guys have got till your next paycheck to sell all this wine or your next paycheck will be in wine.’ We had to do something fast.”

At the time, the restaurant was getting fairly popular as a dinner spot, and an hour wait for a table was not uncommon. The wait helped Cohen employ what he now admits was a curious tactic to sell wine.

“People would ask, ‘How long is the wait for a table?’ and I’d tell them, ‘About an hour and a half without wine, or 45 minutes with wine.’ They’d usually say, ‘OK, put a bottle of wine on my tab.’ That got the whole crew excited about wine.”

Within months, after a newly instituted food extravaganza staged by Cohen called Sea Fare, the focal point at The Olde Port Inn became wine. “We used (the food event) to unveil our 1981 wine list,” he says. Today Sea Fare brings diners from north and south every February to sample loads of good food from well-known chefs all around the state . . . and a huge array of great wines, poured by wineries represented on his list.

So with all his success, why doesn’t Cohen charge more? He admits that one reason is the publicity it generates. “I would say about 15% to 20% of our customers come just for the wine list,” he estimates. That percentage should rise as word of the Olde Port list spreads.

Also, overhead at the restaurant is low and glassware is Spartan (though service is enthusiastic). “We treat wine in the most unsnobbish, most fun way.”

But mostly, Leonard Cohen loves wine. He knows details of every wine on his list--he won’t stock a wine until he has tasted it. And he loves to travel to wineries and deal directly with the owners. “I only carry the wines of friends,” he says. And he is often found cooking dinners for winery owners in their kitchens.

Of the food Cohen cooks at the restaurant, his spicy cioppino gets the most press--it’s a dish that works well with Zinfandel and Pinot Noir. Also, the restaurant’s clam chowder wins awards every year, and Leonard does dishes with salmon that match well with Cabernet Sauvignon.

If all this isn’t enticing enough to the wine connoisseur, there is one last attractive concept: no corkage charge. Cohen says diners rarely bring in wine from their cellars, and when they do, it’s usually for a special occasion, “so why dampen it?” he says. Spoken like a true wine lover.

This year Sea Fare take s place on Feb . 6 and 8.