New York Grapes Of Rapture In Just 20 Years, Long Island's East End Has Ripened Into A Vineyard Mecca That Beckon City Dwellers To Come See And Sip.

CUTCHOGUE, N.Y. — A trip through scenic wine country requires neither plane tickets nor passports - just a car, an open weekend and a willingness to leave all your Long Island stereotypes on the other side of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.

Sculpted like a skinny fish, Long Island sports a two-pronged tail at the end of the Long Island Expressway. Toward those last few exit ramps, the city din evaporates, shopping malls vanish, the Great Peconic Bay rolls in and another Long Island emerges. The East End, with its brimming farm stands, powdery beaches, picket fences and trim village greens, always has been an antidote to nearby communities' suburban frenzy. Now, with pungent grapes growing alongside the pumpkins and potatoes, the area is as green as ever, but claims a whole new cachet.

A weekend spent touring - and tasting - in the wineries of the East End can be both fun and educational. You don't have to be an oenophile to find the complexities of the winemaking process interesting; nor need you be a connoisseur to appreciate delightful results of the vintners' efforts. And, beyond the lure of the grape, this is simply a very pretty part of the world to explore - by car, bike or on foot.

For years, Northeastern winemakers had searched for a place to produce golden chardonnays and garnet cabernets. Where to find a "microclimate" that could match Napa Valley or Burgundy? Upstate New Yorkers tried French American hybrids. Then, Alex Hargrave and his wife, Louisa, tested Long Island's soils. The combination of constant sunlight, well-drained, fertile grounds and nearby temperature-controlling waters added up to a nearly perfect growing season for European vinifera grapes, averaging 200 to 210 days. Being in the back yard of sophisticated New York City wine drinkers couldn't hurt either.

Almost 20 years after the Hargraves bought a 66-acre potato farm and planted 17 acres in vines, their winery has 14 grape-growing neighbors and Long Island claims 1,300 acres of commercial vines. Today, bottles of Bedell, Pindar, Bidwell and Palmer, among other Long Island vintages, show up in the cellars of Manhattan's Le Cirque and Windows on the World. They're even sold

from the shelves of a Tokyo department store, Keio, whose representatives joined my tour of a winery on a recent weekend.