CALIFORNIA ALBUM : Harvest of Fame : Although less than 25 years old, wineries in the Temecula Valley have achieved credibility. But they are still seeking to gain a reputation as noteworthy vinters.

With military-like precision, growers here are watching the weather, marking their calendars, changing strategy at the eleventh hour, mapping deployments and attacking their fields--sometimes at night, sometimes at dawn.

It is grape harvest season in the sun-washed vineyards of Southern California’s wine country, and the vintners in the Temecula Valley are beaming that this may be the most bountiful year yet.

From the Muscats to the Chardonnays to the last Cabernets, the first of more than 6,500 tons of grapes are being picked on a carefully crafted day-by-day schedule that will run through early October.

Temecula’s 11 wineries are, by and large, a scrappy, upstart bunch: less than 25 years old, contributing a bare fraction of California’s wine production and still struggling to craft a reputation as noteworthy winemakers.

But then, the fact that this area is even capable of producing fine table wines runs against one-time conventional wisdom. Old-timers remember when experts at UC Davis once proclaimed that, except to produce dessert wines, fine grapes could not be grown south of the Tehachapis.

The scholars may have forgotten that Franciscan missionaries planted grapes in Temecula 200 years ago--and that during Prohibition, when home winemaking remained legal, growers in southern Riverside and northern San Diego County did a land-office business selling grapes for bathtub wine production.

When developers bought the 90,000-acre Vail Ranch in 1964 and renamed it Rancho California, they hired agricultural consultant Dick Break to help them decide what cash crops to introduce.

They figured he would say orange groves; instead, after studying the weather charts and noting the cooling ocean breeze that strikes like clockwork every afternoon, he upset the orange cart and told them to go with grapes.

The soil has good drainage, the sunshine and heat promotes sugar content and cool evenings develop the requisite acidity, he said.

In 1965, Break planted a demonstration plot, a two-acre vineyard with 57 grape varieties. Many thrived--until cut down and replaced with a ruby grapefruit crop when the property changed hands.

Vintners are still experimenting to find what grapes do best here. It’s a time-consuming exercise: A vineyard needs at least six years to mature, and many more years to develop credible consistency.

Today, Temecula Valley is home to a fledgling $25-million wine industry--the lion’s share in direct tasting room sales to an estimated 100,000 tourists annually who used to think all Temecula had to offer were antiques in its Old Town. They have now discovered Rancho California Road’s line of wineries to be Southern California’s closest equivalent to Napa Valley’s California 29 winery tour--sans some of the natural beauty, the greater number of wineries and the accompanying bed-and-breakfast inns.

Even visitors to the North Coast might unwittingly enjoy the fruits of Temecula’s vineyards, which produce more grapes than the local wineries can handle. Half of the locally grown grapes are sold to vintners in Northern California, for fermentation and bottling there.

Adding long-sought credibility to the region’s efforts was the 1981 sale of the area’s oldest and largest winery, Callaway, to Hiram Walker--that company’s first acquisition of a California winemaker.

By then, a Callaway white Riesling had been chosen--after a competitive tasting of domestic wines--to serve Queen Elizabeth in 1976, when she visited the United States. The Queen even asked for a second glass, the local winery points out.

Adding to the local merit badges: champagne from the acclaimed Culbertson Winery has been served in the White House.

But one queen and one President does not a market create, and the Temecula wineries have long struggled to establish their collective identity. In a business saturated with more Chardonnays than you can shake a trellis at, and with competition from North Coast wine labels backed by century-old reputations, local wine aficionados know that their good name--like good wine--will come in time.

“For years, we’ve been considered the Rodney Dangerfield of wine producers,” said Sharon Anderson, president of the Temecula Valley Wine Society.

“We have boutique wineries who don’t distribute (retail) even in California and so their names are not in the forefront,” she said. “But you can drive through our wine country, go in, and talk directly with the owner and the winemaker. It’s hard to still find that in Northern California.”

Among the challenges facing local winemakers, some marketing experts say, is for Temecula wineries to develop a niche in the wine market with more unusual offerings to draw attention and raise appreciative noses.

Vintner Joe Hart says he is trying to break out by, among other things, harvesting a ton of “fairly obscure Rhone white” grapes and, with colleagues, is considering planting grapes from Italy and Spain.

“Sauvignon blanc does well here, and ours compete well against others--but we’re going head-to-head with areas with much longer-standing reputations,” Hart said. “We need to get some attention for wines that are relatively unique and do exceptionally well here. And we’re in the process of finding out what those wines are.”

Dick Break, who planted the show-and-tell grapes here 27 years ago, agrees that Temecula is still trying to find itself--and it is a process that cannot be rushed.

“The Bordeaux region of France is centuries old, and it’s taken 100 years for people to appreciate wines from Napa,” he said. “Hell, we’re less than 30 years old. This takes time.”

Boutique winemaker Phil Baily moved to the area 12 years ago from San Marino, where he was a consultant for corporate pension plans. Today, he is president of the Temecula Valley Vintners Assn. He operates a gourmet cafe on the main drag, and a winery off a dirt road.

He produces about 3,500 cases of wine a year--compared to the 175,000 cases produced at Callaway--and sells virtually all of it at his two local locations.

“We’re ma and pa--and proud of it,” he said. “Most of us are very content, living in this beautiful area, making good wine--and enjoying the fact that people are coming here to taste and buy it.”