TO a true wine enthusiast, the letters ABC have one meaning: anything but chardonnay. It's a polite way of indicating that a strident minority are bored with America's favorite white wine and are looking for something new and different.
What's more, it doesn't take much time in a liquor store to discover that plenty of wine fans feel the same about the popular reds -- cabernet sauvignon, zinfandel and yes, even merlot.
There are plenty of substitutes, of course: pinot noir is on a roll; the Rhone grapes -- syrah, mourvedre, grenache -- are popular; white grapes like pinot blanc, pinot gris and that flashy newcomer viognier are all welcome at most people's tables. Even the much-maligned riesling has its champions.
Face it, however: This list is tame stuff. To the true adventurer, it offers little. Fortunately, there is another wine world out there, a place where genuine rarities exist, where there are wines guaranteed to vanquish enological ennui. And it's open to anyone with a bit of imagination and some pocket change.
Many other off-the-beaten-path choices are quite serious. Les Vineux, for example, is an intensely sweet wine that an Oregon vintner, Andrew Rich, makes from frozen gewurztraminer grapes. The grapes are frozen after picking so that the water in them turns to ice and can be separated from the thick, sugary pulp. The remaining highly concentrated juice is then fermented.
Rarer still is a true ice wine. The Germans and the Alsatians make it when conditions permit. One is produced now and then in New York State, from the vidal grape. Vidal is a hybrid, a cross between native American varieties and a European grape known as trebbiano in Italy and ugni blanc in France. As in northern Europe, the grapes for this wine hang on the vine long after the regular harvest, until they are literally frozen by winter temperatures. The wine produced from this icy process also has a sweet taste.
The Napa Valley winemaker Philip Togni makes another dark, sweet wine he calls Ca' Togni, from a rare grape known as the black muscat of Alexandria. In the 17th century, when many of the great vineyards of Europe were still swamps or cattle pastures, the world's most prized wine was Constantia, from Cape Town. Constantia is once again produced in the vineyards of South Africa's Western Cape, but no one is sure how closely it resembles its ancestor. Mr. Togni thinks his Ca' Togni, of which he makes very little, is close to the mark.
Some rare wines turn up unexpectedly. When Joe Heitz started Heitz Cellars in the Napa Valley back in 1961, he found vines on his new property, which turned out to be grignolino, an Italian grape probably planted years before by an immigrant farmer. To this day, the rose wine Mr. Heitz continues to produce from those vines has a small but loyal following.
Some lesser-known wines have been here all along. The early settlers in California were casual about naming the vines they brought with them from the old country. Mourvedre, an important grape in Chateauneuf-du-Pape in France, they called mataro. Durif, another little-known French grape, became petite sirah, and the muscadet grape, from the western reaches of the Loire Valley, became pinot blanc. Some growers have reverted to the original names. A few wineries have made durif wines, and world-famous Ridge Vineyards regularly produces a mataro. Zinfandel, a grape whose origins were a mystery for a century, has been traced back to Italy where it was called primitivo and to Croatia where it was -- and still is -- known as plavac mali. There is some speculation in all this; nevertheless, several California wineries have produced primitivos that only a scientist could distinguish from zinfandel. But even America's adventurous winemakers will go only so far. At this point, there have been no California plavac malis.
Finally, there are some wine oddities that have remained obscure for good reasons. Take, for example, the mission grape, the first wine grape introduced in this country. Some months ago, in Los Angeles, I sampled wine made from this variety for the first and, I hope, last time. The mission grape arrived in California in the late 17th century from Spain by way of Mexico. Its name comes, of course, from the Franciscan and Jesuit missions where it was first planted. For well over a century, it was the principal American wine grape. Zinfandel and other more-refined varieties eventually edged it aside, but there are still hundreds of acres of missions planted in California and there are still people who drink the wine made from it.
But then plenty of people enjoy wine made from the Concord grape, whose bouquet reminded the English wine writer Jancis Robinson of the smell of ''a wet, cheap fur coat.'' Concord is still grown in New York State and Washington State. Where fine wines are concerned, Concord and mission grapes are obsolete. I picture their dull, clumsy wines favored by people who still use typewriters and drive DeSotos.
Fetzer Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon, 1994 Barrel Select. North Coast. About $13.
FOR consistent quality at a reasonable price, year after year, it's hard to beat Fetzer's Barrel Select line of wines. This rich, flavorful 1994 cabernet is an excellent example. The appellation is North Coast because the grapes come from vineyards in Sonoma, Napa and Mendocino Counties. After fermentation, the new wine remains in contact with the grape skins for two additional weeks to gain extra color and richness. About 12 percent of the blend is what the winery calls a special cabernet from Howell Mountain in Napa County that was aged separately in American oak. There's quite a bit of oak here, but then this is a fairly big wine (almost 14 percent alcohol), and it handles the oak component well. Everything is in balance.