It must be fun to be a winemaker.

“I’m like a kid in a candy store,” says Clay Brock, winemaker at Wild Horse Winery in California’s Central Coast.

But instead of choosing between gummy bears and gobstoppers, he fills his wine glass, and his vineyard, with such out-of-the-ordinary grapes as malvasia bianca, verdelho, viognier and blaufrankisch — varieties far better known in Europe than California.

It’s nice to see a winemaker make something other than chardonnay and merlot, sauvignon blanc and zinfandel.

“And it’s a challenge to make something like this that’s consistently good,” he says. “Our climate is different here in California.”

Brock inherited the unusual varieties from Kenneth Bolk, who founded Wild Horse in 1981.

“He had a shotgun approach,” Brock says. “When he started out he was growing 33 different varietals.”

Over time the winery focused its selections to what worked best in the local terroir. But Brock won’t give up his eccentric vines.

Verdelho is best known as one of the four grapes in the storied brandy-fortified dessert wine Madeira, made on the Atlantic island of that name 400 miles off the coast of Africa. It was America’s favorite tipple around 1665 when British tax laws made it difficult for the colonies to get wine from the European mainland.

Today Madeira is a bit less popular. In fact, the wine-price website Wine-Searcher last year said it was the 8,296th most popular wine on its site. But as a dry table wine, it’s now planted widely in Australia — and at Wild Horse, where its crisp, ripe-peach flavors go well with seafood.

Malvasia Bianca was born in Greece, and came to Italy with Venetian merchants. For centuries it’s been one of the workhouse grapes of Europe, made into dry wines, sweet wines, sparkling wines and dessert wines. In Italy, it’s often added to chardonnay to enhance its fruitiness. At Wild Horse, it’s a dry, light-bodied wine with hints of minerals and the yin-yang flavors of citrus and honeysuckle. Great with roast pork.

Viognier comes from the France’s Northern Rhône Valley, and was historically the wine of royalty, sometimes reserved for the popes. In the 1960s it almost died out. Happily, it has been resuscitated as an unctuous wine with a subtle hint of sweetness and flavors of vanilla and, of all things, paraffin. California wineries discovered it about 10 years ago, and it’s growing fast. Wild Horse makes a nice one, tasting like ripe apricots. With its hint of sweetness, it’s great with spicy Asian food.

Blaufrankisch, a mildly unpronounceable red grape grown mostly in Austria, came originally from Hungary, where it was called kekfrankos. Hungarian growers brought it to North America via British Columbia, and now Wild Horse is making this bright-red, spicy, light-bodied wine. It’s good with ham, roast chicken and lunch meats.

Wild Horse doesn’t make enough of these wines for national distribution. The best place to buy them is through the winery’s website, wildhorsewinery.com.

Highly recommended

•  2009 Wild Horse Winery Blaufrankisch, Paso Robles: bright red color, lively, spicy red raspberry flavors, light body, crisp; $26.

Recommended

•  2010 Wild Horse Winery Verdelho, Paso Robles: crisp and dry, with aromas and flavors of ripe peaches; $22.

•  2010 Wild Horse Winery Malvasia Bianca, San Bernabe: crisp and lush, with citrus and honeysuckle flavors, light body; $20.

•  2010 Wild Horse Viognier, Central Coast: lush and creamy and very slightly sweet, with aromas and flavors of vanilla and paraffin; $17.