The $100 Chateau Latour? Is it in Aisle 12 : Next L.A. / A Look at issues, people and ideas helping to shape the emerging metropolis.

The Chateau Latour, priced at $100 a bottle, sits in a glass-enclosed, climate-controlled wine cellar. Nearby, an espresso machine stands ready to pump out the taste-bud-popping essence of cafe au lait.

Outside the front door, cordial employees urge customers to exercise caution as they board escalators and descend into a subterranean parking lot.

The place is not some pricey Beverly Hills restaurant. It’s an Alpha Beta supermarket--an especially fancy one to be sure--that opened last November on Wilshire Boulevard on the site of an old Du-Par’s coffee shop.

The Miracle Mile supermarket is part of a movement, again picking up steam in Southern California, to cater to the upscale tastes of customers with gourmet or trendy goods.

While the number of warehouse-style markets with no frills prices has soared in recent years, the high-end stores with their organic produce, expensive wines, coffee bars, full-service deli and floral sections have allure for a select, more affluent niche, experts say.

And in a highly competitive market, distinction can be the difference between boom and bust.

“You’re going to see them try to upscale to try to be something different,” said Don C. Beaver, president of the California Growers Assn., which represents over 8,000 grocery retailers in the state. “The industry had been very flat in sales. So any way someone thinks they can do something different and get more customers, they’re going to do it.”

Alpha Beta, which is merging with Ralph’s this month to form one of the largest chains in the state, has another upscale store in Marina del Rey, and a third one planned for Santa Monica, a spokesman said.

Lucky, another large California grocery chain, has 10 markets with coffee bars and plans to add more, a spokeswoman said. Vons has plans in the next two years to open 15 more of its high-end Pavillions markets, which have full-service delis and bakeries and boast a selection of more than 200 types of beer; the chain recently abandoned its low-overhead, warehouse-style markets.

“They were not profitable for us,” Vons spokeswoman Mary McAboy said. “We recognize that different customers prefer different shopping experiences.”