There is nothing like a delayed harvest in the midst of Salinas Valley to remind folks that wine, for all its upscale trappings and curious semantics, is agriculture.

Indeed, across Monterey County and beyond, the talk right now is not about how to best accentuate exotic seafood appetizers, but rather how to cope with intensifying molds and the possibility of a storm-embattled vintage.

That''s the bad news. The good news is that, if the weather cooperates, the 1998 harvest will pose few logistical problems and likely yield some exceptional wines. In this year of El Ni¤o, only one thing is certain: The grapes are late.

"We''re usually harvesting by the third week of August," says Dan Karlsen, winemaker and general manager at Chalone Vineyard outside Soledad. "But this year I don''t think we''ll see any fruit until October."

Adds Stephen Pessagno, winemaker and vice president at South County''s Lockwood Vineyard, "The growing season has just been weird this year."

Such themes are, in fact, repeating themselves across California, with wine growers from Sonoma to Santa Barbara citing a variety of factors, most of which can be traced to troublesome statewide weather patterns. Vineyards got off to a late start due to cool and sometimes wet spring weather, only to be confounded by an onslaught of pests and mildew that seemed straight out of science fiction. In the words of one North Coast vintner: "We had bugs I''ve never seen before. I kept looking to the east, watching for the locusts to come."

Says Greg Stokes, vineyard manager for David Bruce Winery in the Santa Cruz Mountains, "All the way along the line, we''ve been late. We had bud break, then the vines just sat there for a month and didn''t do anything. They finally started growing later in the spring."

Adds Pessagno, "I saw plants that had two- to three-inch shoot-tip growth while others were just starting to swell. They were just psyched out. It didn''t get warm enough to make them come out and say, ''Okay, time to grow.''"

Most vineyards subsequently saw a late bloom-the flowering process that "sets" the upcoming crop-amid uncooperative weather. Ideally, bloom enjoys conditions that are dry, warm and calm. While various grape varieties experience bloom at different times, this year''s flowering conditions were rarely optimal at any given time.

Consequently, yields are down across the county and beyond.

"The set was a little off," says Dan Lee, owner of Morgan Winery in Salinas. "There are good cluster counts, but the weight per cluster will be down a bit. I think most people are looking at yields being 10 to 20 percent lower than normal."

Meanwhile, moderate summer temperatures contributed to unusually high mildew pressure, a development that had tractors and spray programs in nearly perpetual motion. According to Pessagno, powdery mildew thrives in a temperature zone, "where we''ve spent a good portion of this year." He also notes that warmer locations such as the Lockwood region in South County were not hit as hard as those in cooler climes.

"It''s spotty," Pessagno says. "And it''s also site-specific. Even within individual vineyards there are high-pressure areas and areas that look really good."

Mildew attacks the skin of a grape, eventually causing a split that leaves the fruit vulnerable to attack from bacteria, mold and pests.

Along the way, the grape crop failed to make up for lost time and is now flirting with the possibility of autumn storms. Later harvests essentially widen the window of opportunity for rainfall to impact the vintage. That''s a scenario that no wine grower likes to envision because such storms yield an inherent conundrum: They bring the ripening process to a temporary halt while encouraging the growth of molds like botrytis. In fact, water uptake can knock a grape''s sugar level back a degree or more during a heavy rainfall, causing a setback in the ripening process, and giving subsequent molds more time to do their dirty work.

"With certain varietals, particularly things like Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, the clusters are very tight and the berries are just packed against each other," Karlsen says. "Water can get inside the cluster, and you can''t get it out again. It just sits in there, and you''ll start getting mold growth on the interior of the clusters.A crop can literally self-destruct very quickly."

Nevertheless, there may yet be a silver lining to all the storm clouds of the past year. Later harvests, or extended growing seasons, can enhance flavor and aroma profiles as grapes mature slowly through increased "hang time." Low yields, as well, are known to encourage flavor intensity.

"Most of the flavor comes from the skins," Karlsen says. "So with a berry the size of a pea, the flavor is just unbelievable because the skin to volume ratio is large."

Adds Pessagno, "Berry size is especially critical with red varietals.As a result of lower berry set and smaller berries, I suspect that the flavor and color will be better in the red wines this year than you would expect from a more ''normal'' year."

As always, everything turns on the axis of Mother Nature.

"Things can change in a moment''s notice, and that''s the fun of the wine business," Karlsen says. "We could be sitting here with the greatest crop in the world and then have a disastrous rainstorm. Or we could have just the opposite: 110-degree heat and 30 mile-per-hour winds. You have to be fairly calm to enjoy the business, because it''s such a roller-coaster ride sometimes."

And where would Karlsen like the roller-coaster to take him right now? "My hope is that this cool weather blows off and we go into a 90-degree pattern for a week to get everything cranking along again," he says. cw