off the beaten path

looking for unique wines, either by region, varietal, viticulture, vinification… There are so many interesting wines with near unlimited varietals, it is hard to know where to look outside of the more well known stuff.

I recently had Chateau Musar’s 2018 Jeune Red from Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley (50% Cinsault, 30% Syrah, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon). Very good QPR. I will likely buy a few more.

2015 Montresor Re Teodorico Recioto della Valpolicella. If you like Port and/or Amarone, Recioto della Valpolicellas are worth a try. Had this last Christmas and decided to make a new tradition of opening a Recioto each Christmas day. This year will be 2015 Tommaso Bussola Recioto della Valpolicella Classico

Currently I am looking for Picolit wines from Friuli-Venezia Giulia, but have yet to try.

What are some of the more unique wines anyone has tried and would recommend? Hopefully this is useful to others out there exploring as well, but thank you in advance for any recs.

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There are a lot of threads on this topic. May want to do a search. I don’t find musar particularly off the beaten path either.

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Can someone call Otto Forsberg?

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Oh boy, where do we begin? Finding offbeat wines takes perseverance. Much depends on what is imported, what market you live in, and what stores you shop and buy at. Just start searching. One thing though, you won’t find many picolits around.

On this board and in common circles it certainly is not, but for the broader wine drinking public (especially in the US), Musar (and other Bekaa wines) are very far off the beaten path, though so would probably be certain other regions (Friuli as stated by OP for example) that board members don’t find off the beaten path.

A few suggestions that are similarly places as the OP’s example: Western Slovenia (Brda) white wines, a fun comparison to the Friuli whites (as well as wines from Croatia, Montenegro, etc.), or Isreali/Turkish red wines (if you can source them).

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Emerges out of nowhere

Well now, this looks like my kind of thread.

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Musar makes 60k cases a year. I saw it on the wine list at Hillstone. How is that off the beaten path?

Off the beaten path can mean “not widely known”…ask the average wine drinker in the US if they know about Chateau Musar and you’ll get blank stares

Using AD’s definition of off the beaten path - that is, wines that go beyond the half-dozen major categories one learns about when starting out but aren’t uber-rare micro-wines that only 12 people and a goat have ever heard of - and in addition to those already mentioned - I’d suggest mencia-based wines from Bierzo and Ribeira Sacra in Spain and mondeuse-based wines from the Savoie in France. Delicious and relatively available these days.

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+1 on Ribeira Sacra, good call

Ruche was mentioned in the bargain Nebbiolo thread. That’s a good one.
Have you explored much from Campania, Marche, Calabria and Puglia?

I represent some of these but:
Vestini Campagnano Terre del Volturno–in the northern hills of Campania, wines are focused on the ancient varieties of Pallagrello Nero, Casavecchia & Pallagrello Bianco
Lacrima di Morro di Alba (grape) I represent Lucchetti, and I used to sell Velenosi. Also look for the region’s unique dessert wine Vini Viscole, made with a local variety of tart cherries added to the Lacrima.
Statti Gaglioppo or any Ciro from Calabria
Puglia-Negroamaro, Susumaniello (varieties) I represent a winery called Schola Sarmenti. Primitivo is a little more common in the region.
Sicily-Perricone (red) Grillo & Cataratto (white)

As others mentioned, the wines you discussed in your OP aren’t necessarily considered ‘off the beaten path’ for most…

By that definition you could call almost anything that isn’t Cabernet, Malbec, merlot, Pinot, sauvignon bland, or Chardonnay off the beaten path.

The OP is on a wine forum; I don’t think we should apply that standard.

Probably best to follow the OP’s guidance on what he means by the term for purposes of this thread. Since he gave Musar, Friuli, and Recioto as examples of what he means, we should probably go with that. I think the wines mentioned in the responses are in that vein, even if not in the “even Otto and Tom Hill have never tried this” vein.

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Is this like a McDonald’s or Olive Garden? If not, sounds like an offbeat restaurant. pepsi

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Thanks for the responses. I just want to clarify something before this goes further. I think we can all agree that off the beaten path is different for different people. I am hoping we can focus on what wines we each find unique and interesting rather than debating whether a wine or region qualifies as if it is an objective scientifically defined phrase.

I agree that Chateau Musar is not the most unknown producer, but I find a wine that is 50% Cinsault to be unique from my personal experience and I have only had several bottles from Lebanon in my life in general.

Great call. About 2.1% of my collection is actually Mencia from Bierzo and I drink them regularly. Just to add to my point in the last comment. I have a family member who has been drinking far longer than I and has a fairly large collection, but he can’t recall ever having a bottle of Mencia so I just bought him a few this past weekend. IMO Mencia is very under appreciated

Don’t think I have had anything from Ribeira Sacra, but will definitely be on the hunt now!

Thank you.

I’m a huge fan of Negroamaro. 1.8% of my collection is Negroamaro from Puglia about probably about 4% of what I drink due to the price point.

Never had a few others you mentioned. Any Perricone, or Vini Viscole you could recommend?

It looks like your focus is old world but if you’re open to CA i suggest that you check the Sabelli-Frisch offer in Commerce Corner. The Mission is a fascinating history lesson and a really nice sip!

always looking to support smaller businesses when I can. just purchased a 3 pack. Thanks!

Are there such wines?

Just joking. [wink.gif]

Anyhoo, I guess I could contribute with some stuff I’ve tasted off the beaten path.

2017 Artemis Karamolegos Assyrtiko Mystirio/21 - I suppose Santorini Assyrtiko isn’t off the beaten path to anyone. How about one fermented on the skins for 21 days? One would think that a grape known for piercing acidity, aggressive minerality and rather noticeable phenolics wouldn’t make a good skin-contact white. Well, surprisingly enough, they make. Rather austere, but very fine-tuned, delicate and cellarworthy. Probably not everybody’s cup of tea, but definitely a positive surprise for a style that didn’t exist 5 years ago.

2009 Benoît Lahaye Champagne Grand Cru Brut Nature Le Jardin de la Grosse Pierre - I guess everybody has tasted Champagne made from the 3 key varieties. Some have tasted wines made from the other 4 permitted varieties. However, this Champagne is composed of 9 different varieties, and it doesn’t even have all the 7 permitted varieties in the blend! A spectacular bubbly.

2014 Bire Grk - or any Grk for that matter. Probably the greatest white variety in Croatia. Unctuous like a Viognier, but shows more structure and remarkable depth. The difficulty in growing Grk is that the vines have only female flowers, so the vines won’t cross-pollinate themselves. You have to rely on bees and other insects and keep your fingers crossed. That’s why there is so little Grk to go around.

1994 Girolamo Dorigo Colli Pignolo di Buttrio - This would be Friuli’s answer to Langhe’s Barolo/Barbaresco, Tuscany’s Brunello, Campania’s Taurasi and Umbria’s Sagrantino - only if anybody would’ve heard of it. Outrageously structured with remarkable power, acidity and tannins. Since the wines are rather forbidding in their youth (just like Nebbiolo, Aglianico and Sagrantino), most producers have ceased to farm Pignolo and most of the remaining producers tend to make their Pignolos now in this soft and sweet semi-appassimento style that tries to compete with the Amarone wines from the neighboring Veneto. Great Pignolos are very difficult to come by nowadays.

NV Jacques Lassaigne Champagne Le Flacon De L’Incertitude - an orange Champagne. I guess that says enough. Terrific stuff.

NV Jean Bourdy Galant des Abbesses - Technically not a wine, but instead probably the most extraordinary mistelle in the world. The base wine is unfermented Savagnin from Château-Chalon, which is cooked for one whole day with 25 different spices, letting the juice concentrate and infuse it with the spice flavors. After the cooking the juice is fortified with Marc de Franche-Comté, resulting in a Macvin that is 2/3 juice and 1/3 Marc. Then it is aged for a minimum of 5 years in oak barrels. You just simply lack the words to describe the smell of this “wine”, let alone its taste.

2018 Pheasant’s Tears Chinuri-Danakharuli - This is Pheasant’s Tears’ own Georgian take on rosé. Instead of making a rosé wine, they’ve co-fermented white Chinuri with the nigh-extinct Danakharuli (there are only a few hectares in the world). The grapes have went with skins and stems into a kvevri, macerated with the skins for two weeks and then left to finish the fermentation and clarify itself naturally. Feels like a very weird countryside cousin of the already rustic Spanish Clarete style of wine.

1931 Viuva José Gomes da Silva & Filhos Colares Reserva Tinto - These Colares wines are astounding. They seem to develop for 30-40 years and then they just stop it right there. I arranged a tasting of Colares 2010-1931 and from the bottles from the 70’s, 60’s, 50’s, 40’s and 30’s it was impossible to tell which wines were older and which younger. As long as the cork holds, these wines don’t seem to go anywhere.

1992 Weingut Raabe-Schönhof Spätburgunder Beerenauslese Trocken - So, this is not a Trockenbeerenauslese, but a Beerenauslese Trocken. So, somebody in 1992 had a great idea to make a Beerenauslese wine from botrytized Spätburgunder grapes - and then ferment the wine dry. 16,5% alcohol. Unique? Definitely! Good? Heck no.

And then of course: 2012 Château Elomaa Rondo Aiswine - the only ice wine ever made in Finland. Total production: two half bottles. This was poured to me blind, I thought it was a good-quality red Beerenauslese from Austria. Shows that it is possible to make wines of distinction even here in Finland, but I guess making it actually profitable with production numbers like these is still a work in progress.

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