Pouring It On : Foreign makers, armed with better techniques and improved products, are making a big push in the U.S. while California’s crop is down.

The California wine industry’s misery in 1995--its smallest crop in more than a decade--is opening the door for imports from half a dozen countries.

Foreign wine producers formerly had little chance to export wine to the United States because Americans liked California wine, which was plentiful and fairly priced. Now the huge shortfall of grapes throughout California, estimated at 20% statewide and higher in some of the fine wine districts, is forcing domestic wine prices up at a time when there is a wine glut elsewhere.

Today wines from southern France, Italy, Chile, South Africa and eastern Europe are poised to make a huge splash here at prices (less than $5 a bottle in many cases) no California producer can match. (Australia would have been a major player too, but poor weather in 1995 left Australia with a crop so small it may not be able to supply its own domestic market as well as the burgeoning demand from Great Britain, where Australian wine is prized.)

Once, a shortage of domestic wine wouldn’t automatically have spelled hope for imports. Just a decade ago, Chile didn’t exist as a significant wine-making nation; eastern European wineries, under Communist control, made wines from grapes we didn’t like; Italian wines were not as fresh as we liked or as compatible with what we ate and apartheid (and later sanctions) made South African wine a pariah here.

All that has changed. Today there’s a worldwide surplus of wine, especially in Western Europe and South Africa, because of improved winemaking and grape-growing techniques.

It starts with better quality grapes. Not only have Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon replaced less familiar grapes, but vines are now grown with better understanding of flavor development. And new trellising and vineyard management systems produce larger crops of better quality.

Also, wineries everywhere can now use winemaking methods developed at the world’s leading wine schools. Originally you could learn about them only from technical papers, which were available only at the schools. Today, consulting winemakers fly all over the world to teach new methods, and the concepts are being electronically messaged on computer bulletin boards and on the Internet. So even a remote farmer in Bulgaria can find out about a method that will make his 20 barrels of Chardonnay better.

Here are some examples of how wine from other nations is affecting what’s available to us.

* The Robert Mondavi Winery announced a joint venture with Errazuriz, a century-old winery in Chile that formerly had a joint venture with Franciscan Vineyards. Mondavi will market a new line of wines under an as-yet unnamed brand in about three years.

* The Monterey Vineyard, unable to find sufficient supplies of Merlot to meet its needs, will market under its own name a Merlot made in the south of France. Under the Monterey Vineyards’ brand will be the appellation Vins du Pays d’Oc.

* Partager, which used to come from southern France, soon will be resurrected here by brand owner Canandaigua Wine Co., using wine from Chile.

South African wine is a classic example of imports making a splash here. Three years ago it couldn’t be sold here because of economic sanctions. Today, about two dozen brands are available in the United States.

Almost all of the wines are better than what South Africa sent here a decade ago, before the sanctions. Back then, most South African wines were simple. Many whites had little character, and the reds were not to Americans’ tastes.

“For centuries, we made wines that very much were designed to appeal to South Africans’ tastes,” says Jacques Vandewalle, manager for Bergkelder Vinoteque, a consortium of 15 estate wineries that market jointly.

In 1980, he pointed out, there was no Chardonnay, no Sauvignon Blanc and no Merlot planted in all of South Africa’s 250,000 acres of vineyards. Today, those three varieties account for about 10% of plantings, and the percentage is growing.

Also, present-day South African wines are being made with an international market in mind. Much of what is offered here shows great character at fair prices. And the values are finding homes with Americans.

For the first six months of 1994, South Africa exported 14,500 cases to the United States. For the same period this year, South Africa shipped 35,300 cases here, and much of the additional wine is upscale stuff selling for $15 a bottle.

One example is the 1989 Meerlust Rubicon, a wine that is 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Merlot and 15% Cabernet Franc, aged in French oak. I love this wine, especially considering its price--$16. It has an intense Cabernet aroma, already has bottle bouquet (coming from the southern hemisphere, where the harvest is in spring, it’s already more than seven years old) and a generous, soft finish. It tastes like a wine that would sell for much more.

Another great value from South Africa is 1989 Stellenryck Cabernet Sauvignon ($13), from a cool region, a wine that shows great charm in a leaner style. The wine, although it is already beginning to show maturity, will be better in five to seven more years.

Also excellent is 1991 Meerlust Cabernet Sauvignon ($16), with wonderful structure and a marvelous aroma of dill, anise and berries.

These wines are reasonably priced by design, says Vandewalle. For decades, he says, sanctions and social pressures kept South African products out of the United States. Now that it’s legal to sell them here again, South Africa’s wine companies want to remind the rest of the world of the good values available from the Cape.

It is economic pressure like this that California wineries face for the coming year or two.

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Wine of the Week

1993 L’Ormarins Blanc Fume ($9) --L’Ormarins was one of the first South African wineries to plant Sauvignon Blanc, in the early 1980s, and it did so in the cool Franschhoek Valley, east of Cape Town.

Most southern hemisphere Sauvignon Blancs--notably those from New Zealand--exhibit the variety’s strong hay-like character. This wine is more like a delicate Sancerre, with hints of lime, green apple and olives. It has a pleasingly flinty aftertaste and a medium body that is perfect with light seafood dishes. The secret to this wine is a perfect balance of fruit and acidity.

With discounts, the wine will be seen in most stores at little more than $7 a bottle, a superb buy.