By Julie Lane

Ride a Long Island Rail Road train into Port Jefferson and you'll see signs for Long Island Wine Country. But Port Jefferson is, in fact, a fair distance from what is typically considered Long Island Wine Country.

Why, then, does the tiny 3.05-square-mile village boost East End wines?

"We help ourselves by helping our neighbors," says Port Jefferson Chamber of Commerce vice president Bill Monahan. The port tries to encourage the purchase of all Long Island products, he says.

But more than that, Long Island Wine Country, typically thought of as the North and South forks, beginning in Riverhead, might extend farther west if Port Jefferson's neighbor, Brookhaven, has anything to say about the future.

There are people in Brookhaven who are looking at the possibility of trying to develop wines, said Mr.

Monahan. And just as Port Jefferson now looks to the other Long Island wineries for products to boost, so it would respond to a Brookhaven initiative, he said.

But there's another key to why Long Island wines and locally grown foods are such successful sellers in Port Jefferson. The Cross Sound Ferry, which runs from Orient Point on the North Fork to New London, Conn., also operates ferries between Port Jefferson and Bridgeport, Conn.

"We're just a puddle away," says Dan Damianos of Peconic's Pindar Vineyards. He lives and works in the Port Jefferson area even though his vineyard is on the North Fork. In what he calls a natural extension of its marketing effort, Pindar opened a store to sell its wines in Port Jefferson 10 or 12 years ago, when Dr. Damianos was exploring market expansion and decided to target Connecticut. He was already reaching many of the wine lovers who passed his vineyard on the way to and from the Cross Sound Ferry terminal in Orient. But most of those were from northern Connecticut. The ferry from Port Jefferson reaches potential customers in southern Connecticut.

A store near the ferry terminal seemed "a good way to introduce our wines," says Dr. Damianos. "It worked out very well." Since opening the store he has received a lot of holiday orders from Connecticut residents as well as from buyers who live in Port Jefferson, and the venture has easily justified its operating expenses, delivering a handsome profit to Pindar.

And because downtown Port Jefferson is "a big tourist area, it's great exposure" for Pindar wines, he says. People from other states visit and are introduced to the Pindar wine line.

Like Greenport, Port Jefferson boasts that it's a "village that's a destination," according to Mr. Monahan. It's a vacation hub with a lot of fine restaurants, says the Chamber of Commerce official, noting that fine restaurants want to complement their food with good wines.

"A lot of wine drinking goes on in Port Jefferson," he jokes, mentioning a recent jazz and American music festival where there was plenty of wine consumption. And at Port Jeff's Long Island Farm Market on Thursdays, East End wines are popular, along with locally grown vegetables and other typical area food.

Port Jefferson is a year-round hub of activity that depends a lot on its tourist trade, making it a natural mecca for those seeking good food and wines. According to Mr. Monahan, visitors from other areas are curious to try local products.

John Paul Gunderson, operations manager and wine steward at the Port Jefferson Country Club, says he chooses Long Island wines because of the overall quality and value they offer his patrons. Several East End wineries are represented on his wine list and he expects to add more soon.

Dockside is another Port Jeff eatery that's seeing brisk sales of Long Island wines, according to general manager Christine Iadanza.

More are sure to follow.