CALIFORNIA ALBUM : Sour Grapes Over Tourist Boom : The Santa Ynez Valley has become one of the nation’s most popular wine-producing regions, prompting some vintners to complain that their quaint area is being stomped on by visitors.

When Michael Benedict crushed his first batch of grapes 21 years ago, the Santa Ynez Valley was known primarily for its cattle ranches and beet farms. No one thought much about tourism.

Now the valley is the center of one of America’s hottest wine-producing regions, attracting tour buses, celebrity seekers and carloads of tourists. And some of the vintners and wine lovers who created the interest are concerned that all the attention will ruin the pastoral valley.

At one time, Benedict produced some of the valley’s finer wine. But in 1990, he sold his small vineyard and winery, Sanford and Benedict.

“I wanted to get out of the tourist industry,” he said. “There was a lot of pressure to accommodate tourists.

“And,” he added, “there still is.”

The pressure from a growing legion of visitors to the Santa Ynez Valley has uncovered a schism, pitting vintners who just want to make good wine against others who believe that tourists are the lifeline for this wine region still regarded as existing in the shadow of the more famous Napa Valley.

“There’s a lot of argument around here for and against tourism,” said Jim Clendenen, owner of the Au Bon Climat winery.

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Santa Barbara County’s wine industry has exploded in popularity, prestige and growth in the last six years.

Santa Ynez Valley lies 30 miles northeast of Santa Barbara, over the oak-studded Santa Ynez Mountains. It is dotted with the small towns of Santa Ynez, Los Olivos, Buellton and Solvang and includes about 8,000 residents--a growing portion of them newcomers.

About a 2 1/2-hour drive from Los Angeles, the valley has become a country getaway for celebrities and urban emigres, who build second homes next to the vineyards and horse ranches.

The celebrities help lure other visitors. But the weekend crowds are resented by some for treading on the slow rural pace.

“You’ll get seven carloads of people looking for a winery and they drive up to someone’s private estate, expecting a guided tour,” said Robert Varley, executive director of the Solvang Conference and Visitors Bureau.

At the bureau office, Varley said, “we have people come in and ask where does (rock star) Michael Jackson live. We act real dumb and say: ‘Golly, I don’t know.’ ”

Perhaps the main source of friction about the tourists is the traffic created along California 246, the two-lane highway that winds through the valley.

The onslaught of visitors to the wineries exacerbates the usual weekend crush of cars headed to Solvang, the Danish-theme town of chocolate shops and souvenir stores, historically the valley’s biggest tourist draw.

Solvang attracts 3.5 million tourists a year. Now, with the wineries booming, on any weekend afternoon it is common for traffic and tempers to snarl on valley roads.

Officials have tried two short-term solutions--adding a turning lane on California 246 through Solvang and coordinating the city’s three traffic signals to smooth the heavy traffic.

One long-term proposal for traffic problems is a six-mile, $50-million bypass that loops around Solvang to link U.S. 101 with California 246. Some advocates say the project will alleviate traffic; critics say that it will attract more crowds.

“I’m not willing to live here if this (tourism) thing gets out of hand,” said Anthony Austin, a winemaker who recently sold his Austin Cellars winery, in part, because of the changing valley.

“I think a lot of us see the negative side of growth,” said Bob Lindquist, owner and winemaker at Qupe. “I’m concerned about the potential for us to turn into another Napa Valley.”

To those discouraged about tourism, the mention of Napa Valley evokes fears of rampant T-shirt shops, souvenir stores and clogged roads.

“The tourist shtick has become so successful in Napa, it’s almost become peripheral to the wine-making business,” said Benedict, who remained in the area after selling Sanford and Benedict and is now a county planning commissioner.

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But Santa Ynez Valley is not Napa Valley. With just 33 wineries, Santa Barbara County’s wine industry is a mere shadow of the 350-plus establishments in the Napa-Sonoma region.

But the Santa Barbara wine business has boomed in a short period. In 1987, the value of wine grapes here was $14 million, according to UC Santa Barbara. By 1991, that figure had more than doubled to $33 million.

And the tourists have helped, industry experts say. “It’s good business for wineries to have drop-in visitors,” said Jon Fredrikson, a wine economist.

Vintners who appreciate the value of weekend tourists are pushing harder to lure visitors to the vineyards. The Santa Barbara County Vintners Assn. sponsors an annual spring festival that attracts about 4,500 people. It has become so popular that a second event is held in the fall.

But to keep the area from becoming too much like Napa Valley, officials have begun a review of the county general plan to ensure that the valley’s agricultural heritage is protected.

In Solvang, the visitors bureau has stopped mass market promotions and started to advertise only in high-income markets such as Pacific Palisades and Laguna Beach.

“We’re not going after John Q. Public anymore,” Varley said. “We’re looking for the upscale person who tends to respect other people’s privacy and who doesn’t flinch at spending $200 for a room.”

Solvang officials have also discussed hiring someone to conduct controlled tours of the outlying wineries. “I think you’re going to see restricted access in the future,” Varley said.