The LPGA has its regular tour and the Legends Tour, which held its inaugural event last weekend at Kapolei. Now, let me tell you about its "vintage tour" involving a bunch of ladies who are into fine wines.

Asked if she's an oenophile, Amy Alcott replied, "Of course." No sideways about it for the Hall of Fame golfer. "I like all wines, but my favorites are pinot noirs, very soft and very expensive. But if you're going to talk about wine, talk to Cindy Rarick."

"I guess I have a reputation," said Rarick, former University of Hawai'i golfer who still maintains ties with Waikoloa. No question, she's really into fine wines. "Ooh, my favorite thing next to golf."

It helps, too, that her boyfriend, Gary Seidler, owns Salvarra Vineyards, a winery about two hours southeast of Seattle.

"The wine industry is becoming so big in the state of Washington," said Rarick, who almost missed the Kinoshita Pearl Classic because she had to lift and label around 300 bottles of the vineyard's first-year production of 800 cases. "He has a riesling, a chardonnay and a cabernet blend with merlot and zinfandel and it's delicious."

Rarick's favorite wine, though, is from Napa Valley, California. "Cain Five. It's a blend and it's fabulous, just yummy. About a hundred dollars a bottle in a wine store and on a wine list in a restaurant it's about $250 a bottle. I don't buy it often," she said.

But for someone who drinks white wines during the summer when it's warm and reds during the winter, Rarick needs a good house wine to cover 365 days of the year.

"I try to get a relatively good house wine. My white at home is a Clone DeJon Chardonnay made by Pine Ridge out of Napa. It's just a wonderful chardonnay, not too heavily oaked, not too buttery. It's just got a beautiful balance. I don't have a specific red for my daily wine. There are so many good reds — sometimes I drink pinot noirs, merlots, blends or cabs. I don't have a favorite red other than a Cain Five. That's one for special occasions."

Uh, how about Mirassou, the official wine of the LPGA Tour?

"I don't know how that happened," said Rarick, wrinkling her nose. (By the way, Beringer will be the official wine of the PGA Tour beginning in 2010.)

How did Rarick get into wines?

"Years ago on the LPGA Tour, we had a club called the 'Cellar Dwellers' (yes, as in wine cellar) made up of those who really enjoyed wine," Rarick said. "We would meet once a month at whatever city we were playing, usually get a private dining room at a restaurant, and get people to come and to talk to us about matching and pairing wines with different foods." The group included Shelley Hamlin, Alice Ritzman and Jane Crafter.

"Jane Blalock would have been in it but she was almost off the tour at that time. She loves wine. She's definitely an aficionado," said Rarick. If everyone says talk to Cindy Rarick when it comes to the subject of wine, Rarick says talk to Jane Blalock, who heads the Legends Tour.

Blalock's the ultimate wine connoisseur among the women golfers with a collection of a thousand bottles — 800 in her wine cellar at her Cape Cod home and 200 in a cuvette at her apartment in Cambridge, Mass.

"I am a wine lover and a collector," said Blalock in a bit of an understatement considering her treasure trove includes a Chateau Margaux that can fetch anywhere between $500 and $1,000 a bottle. It wasn't near that price when she bought them 20 years ago, she said. "I'm very patient, not in golf, but in wine."

That patience is apparent in her current choice of house red — a Bordeaux she purchased by the caseloads 10 years ago. She paid around $15 for a bottle then. "They are fantastic now and around $50," said Blalock, who got into wines early in her career.

"Many of my friends were from other countries where wine was a way of life. We would go to dinner and share a bottle. You can have a glass or a glass and a half of wine and still play pretty good the next day and not ruin your putting stroke," she said.

"I think I like this," Blaylock told herself. "I found that I ate more slowly, I digested my food well and it was relaxing. So I just got a little bit more into it. And then my taste went from $10 a bottle up."

Now it's in a Bordeaux or a Joseph Phelps Insignia price range. "And I love the Chateau Margaux, hard not to," says Blalock. "I wait for special occasions but if I wait for another golf tournament win they might end up bad."

Blalock and the others celebrated the success of the inaugural Legends event here with a wine tasting that night at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. Even Jan Stephenson, who's more of a Scotch Whisky drinker, had a glass or two.

Stephenson had been kidded by her gal pals for not being into wine. "They'd get mad at me because I used to add ice and soda to it or when I told them I bought a nice bottle of wine for $8.99," Stephenson said. "They'd say we got Jan a box of wine."

Stephenson recalled the time she won her first Legends event several years ago. "Janey (Blalock) said, 'If you win, I want you to buy me a bottle of Australian Penfold LaGrange.' I had no idea how much it cost. So I won and I went to a real fancy wine store to get it. When they rang it up, I thought they made a mistake because it was like $162. I thought it should have been $16."

Stephenson said, "No, no, call the manager." He informed her that it indeed was the price.

Talk about bottle shock.

Bill Kwon can be reached at billkwonrhs@aol.com