Nice to hear. I wish there were some wines on this side of the pond as well.
Schiava from Germany. Unless you live in Württemburg.
#yestrollingerplease
To me, the ultimate nerd wine is red Chassagne-Montrachet, particularly from Ramonet or Bernard Moreau.
A few others:
Chateau Pradeaux
Pepe Montepulciano d’Abruzzo
Mastroberardino Taurasi
Cotat Sancere (and, even more so, Cotat Sancere Rose)
Albert Mann Riesling Schlossburg
Maximin Grunhauser Abtsberg (virtually any pradikat)
Aubert de Villaine Rully Blanc
Falkensteiner
Lauer Sekt
Ca Togni (even if David (and I)) have tasted it.
Champagne from the Arbane grape. Moutard makes a lovely rendition.
I’d like to buy that wine a vowel, Pat.
All of these are top producers of their respective regions, notnreally geeky in any way, but just good names for a quality-minded producer. I doubt any wine geek wouldn’t love to drink these and I have / have had many of these in my cellar, but these are not particularly geeky.
This, however, is a truly geeky Champagne, seeing how Arbane is planted only to some 1 hectare in the world. I’ve had the wine once and it was very impressive indeed. I have been trying to get my hands on another bottle for some time now, but to no avail.
I disagree. I don’t think of wines from mediocre wine grapes as wines for wine geeks. I think of great wines that are relatively unknown and reasonably priced are for wine geeks. These are all legitimately great wines at reasonable prices. Which would a wine geek not love? How many casual wine lovers buy or even have heard of these wines?
I don’t know Otto, I think Lauer sekt is properly geeky. I bought new release 1984 sparkling riesling last year. That’s uber geek to most.
You can disagree as much as you want to, and I doubt wine geeks are particularly interested in mediocre wines either. However, I think you are confusing the term here. Your wines are fit for any serious wine enthusiast, whereas wine geeks / wine nerds are interested in off-piste wines that are something outside the ordinary. I’m sure any wine geek would love these wines, but that doesn’t make these geeky wines. Just like an experimental music enthusiast can enjoy a fine piece of classical music without being serious fan of classical music.
Your point sounds more like you want to be considered as a wine geek as well, so you just list a bunch of wines you drink yourself and argue that all the other wines listed here are mediocre stuff that don’t interest wine geeks. However, if you’d display a list of those wines to any serious (self-proclaimed or not) wine geek, they’d probably consider them good but quite pedestrian wines without much geek factor.
Oh yes, forgot about those. That’s because “Lauer Sekt” is just the basic bubbly Riesling they produce every year. The Lauer Riesling Brut Reserve isn’t officially Sekt, because it was originally produced as “Saar Schaumwein” as not all vintages qualify for Sekt - for example, IIRC, the 1984 (which I’ve had couple of times) doesn’t say Sekt anywhere in the label. The ones that are eligible, display “Sekt” in small in the left side of the label.
However, I concur that they are pretty geeky, having tasted the 1984 and 1991 vintages myself - although I’ve found the story behind the wines more interesting than the wines themselves.
The Juhfark arrived day before yesterday. We opened it over lunch with super fresh Dutch oysters and it’s a fantastic match. Wasn’t that easy to source the wine but I found a Tornai top selection Aranyhegy Juhfark 2016 from Somló which was €25 retail.
Great lemony acidity with some gooseberry, horseradish, parsnip and a big scoop of volcanic ashes.
Since this is my first Juhfark from Somló, I’m not sure how representative the bottle is of variety and region, but I’m very pleased with the pairing!
Tornai is the second-biggest producer in Somló and basically all the other producers make stuff from only 1-3 hectares. The Tornai style is a bit more polished and modern and especially the two single-vineyard Juhfarks (Aranyhegy and Grófi) are quite big and polished wines with somewhat noticeable (but not overwhelming) oak influence, while most other producers in Somló don’t use oak at all or age their wines only in very old, neutral oak vessels. As the Tornai top wines are slightly more “international” in style than most other Somlói Juhfarks, they might not be that representative for the local style, but they are nevertheless very impressive wines in their own right, showing how Somló can make some very impressive, world-class white wines. I myself have a small mini-vertical of Tornai Grófi in my cellar and am keeping my eyes open for any new bottles that I might come across!
A long wait is traditional.
Totally agree with the bolded (and good info on the other part of your post!). I enjoy the wine and own a handful of bottles but I don’t know if I would buy it without the story. I guess that’s the definition of geeky wine and geeky wine lovers. ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Nah, I guess it’s just how people work. Good stories sell wines, be they geeky or not. 
Wine geeks buy geeky wines even without stories, the stories just help to sell the wines that otherwise might get overlooked!
Nothing is geeky or nerdy anymore, as any grape that has made wine has been bottled and drunk by someone, so, nothing new to see in the world (and if you think there is, you’re not using your imagination).
How much experience do you have with the less well-known varieties mentioned in this thread that you seem to classify as “mediocre”? Do you think that obscurity equals (or even suggests) mediocrity? There are fantastic wines being made all over the world from grapes with which I strongly suspect you are unfamiliar, but your ignorance doesn’t make them mediocre.
I revel in the fact that the world of great wine is open to me, as this week vividly illustrates. I spent Sunday afternoon with friends drinking Alexandre Filaine NV Champagne, Clos Roche Blanche Pineau d’Aunis Rosé, Sauvignon Blanc, Côt, Cabernet, Gamay, and Pif (a blend of Cabernet Franc and Côt), an Envinate old vine Mencia from Ribeira Sacra, a Pinot Noir and Chardonnay blend from Division in Oregon, a 2014 Le Vignes Herbel La Pointe Chenin Blanc, and Coudert’s lovely 2011 Cuvée Christal Fleurie. A fairly obscure and dare I say geeky assortment.
Then on Wednesday I joined some other friends for a dinner with 1995 Krug, 2013 Rhys Alpine Chardonnay, 2014 Gangloff Condrieu, 1990 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild, 2000 Giacosa Barolo Le Rocche del Falletto di Serralunga d’Alba Riserva, and 1998 Bryant Family Cabernet. These are benchmark wines that would be instantly recognized by all but the most casual of wine drinkers.
I enjoyed the wines from Sunday every bit as much as the more well-known and vastly more expensive wines on Wednesday. Sunday’s wines aren’t lesser, they are just different, and the world would be poorer from the absence of any of this week’s wines. I pity the “serious collectors” whose unfamiliarity with the varieties, regions, or producers would lead them to view Sunday’s wines with disdain. I also pity the self-proclaimed “wine geeks” who would denigrate Wednesday’s wines or those who enjoy them out of envy.
I started my wine journey more than 25 years ago with the classic regions (Bordeaux, Burgundy, Rhone, Champagne, Piedmont, Tuscany, Rioja, and the like) and since then have had wines from well over 250 to 300 different varieties from around the world. I still discover new and exciting varieties, regions, styles, and producers every year. There is nothing wrong with sticking with the wines that one knows best. However, that approach doesn’t justify ignorantly denigrating wines with which one has little or no experience.
The Champagne comments reminded me of
Benoit Lahaye “Jardin de la Grosse Pierre” which is made from grapes planted by his great grandfather and which include varieties he acquired from all over France including Arbanne, Chardonnay, Chasselas, Gros Plant, Petite Meslier, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Meunier, Pinot Noir, and Teinturier.
Then there is Calsac’s Revenants bottling which, while a touch less exotic, is made from Pinot Blanc, Petit Meslier, and Arbanne
Both are really good (though I’ll admit neither is my favorite bottling from their respective producers).
I agree with Howard. (although will agree ‘obscure’ does not prima facie mean ‘bad’)and as I alluded to upthread, I think the definition of ‘wine geek’ wines on this thread is being more or less limited to “wines from really obscure grapes”. While that certainly fits within the definition, if Dirty & Rowdy’s Semillon does not fall with a definition of a wine geek wine because A) it’s not particularly hard to get and b) Semillon is not an especially obscure grape (although it has less than 600 acres planted in CA, behind both Burger and Triplett Blanc), then, well, you and I have different definitions of what a wine geek is.
There’s no wine you can make that can’t be made. All you need is love.