In the world of wine, the idea of age-worthiness and astronomic price has sadly become conflated. A few months ago, I wrote a plaintive essay against the idea of wine collecting as an “investment,” fueled by predictions from critics on pricey bottles from certain regions and producers that will presumably increase in value as the years roll on. I made the case that there’s something intangible, ineffable about aging wine. Cellaring a wine is an investment only for being able to open a unique wine in the future.

Now, I certainly understand why collectors stick with age-tested wines like Bordeaux, Burgundy, Barolo, Brunello, Napa, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Mosel, and the like. But the truth is that there are many more age-worthy wines in the world than we’re led to believe by the Liv-ex index or by legacy wine critics.

This is especially true if you’re a younger collector, with many years of wine-drinking ahead of you. There is a whole world of wines that can pay back your patience if you’re willing to cellar them. Sure, you must be okay with taking some risks, but the nice thing about taking risks on wine is … it’s literally just wine. You’ll probably recover—financially, ego-wise—from buying that oddball case or two that doesn’t work out.

So why don’t you be the dynamic collector who takes the chance and goes a little off the beaten path?

By the way, when I say, “off the beaten path,” I’m not talking about straying too far. Often, it’s a matter of collecting the less popular wines, or up-and-coming producers in a particular region, or the region next door. It’s not about reinventing the wheel.

These four regions, two for reds and two for whites—that are overlooked by American collectors—are offering incredible value right now on exquisite, age-worthy wines.

Rioja’s New Wave

By now, I probably sound like a broken record when it comes to Rioja. So why aren’t you collecting and cellaring the exciting new wave of producers that’s happening in Spain’s legacy region? Likely because you’ve been conditioned to think one way about Rioja, all based on barrel aging: crianza, reserva, gran reserva. For too many wine lovers, Rioja means a big, oaky red that’s reliable but unexciting, especially in an era when big, oaky reds aren’t in fashion.

The wine from Rioja that I’m excited about is something completely different: they prioritize freshness and energy over wood and power, cool wines grown at higher altitudes, blends of several grapes over monovarietal Tempranillo, a commitment to organic or biodynamic farming, and, most importantly, a sense of place that’s not dictated by barrel aging.

Rioja, at long last, is focusing on terroir rather than wood. In 2017, the Rioja DOCa launched a new system of “grand cru” single vineyards, Viñedos Singulares. Local village names were also finally able to be added to labels, and now you'll see significant wine-growing towns—such as Laguardia, Labastida, San Vicente de la Sonsierra, Lanciego, Baños de Ebro, Villabuena, and others—listed there. People are now more clearly understanding the geographic divide between Rioja Alavesa (to the north, in Basque Country) and Rioja Alta (on the other side of the Ebro River), as well as Rioja Oriental (to the east and south).

New-wave producers have by and large opted out of the traditional Rioja aging designations of crianza, reserva, and gran reserve. Most choose to bottle as cosecha or genérico (meaning no aging requirements). “If you put the wine in a barrel as long as the regulations say, you will lose all the fruit, all the freshness, everything that’s interesting about the wine,” Sandra Bravo of Sierra de Toloño told me on my last visit.

Along with the rediscovery of terroir is the embrace of Rioja’s very old vineyards. “Old vines” is certainly a buzzword in the wine world, but in Rioja it actually means something. When I’m there, without fail, some winemaker will take me to yet another vineyard that’s 80 or 100 years old, or even older. “I don’t consider vines to be ‘old’ unless they have at least 80 years,” Oxer Bastegieta, one of Rioja’s most exciting younger producers, told me when I was there last year. “Nowhere else in the world has the old vineyards that we have here in Rioja.”

Right now, you can still find great Rioja for under $50. Even top bottles from producers like Artuke, Oxer, or Miguel Merino are selling for a fraction of great Burgundy, Bordeaux, or Barolo.

Rioja producers to seek out

Artuke, Oxer Wines, Arizcuren, Sierre de Toloño, Miguel Merino, Cuentaviñas, Tentenublo, Olivier Rivière, MacRobert & Canal, Jose Gil, Elena Corzana, Victor Ausejo, Aiurri, Bideona. Several well-established estates, such as Gómez Cruzado, Remírez de Ganuza, Bodegas Valdemar, and Pujanza are also employing more new-style approaches.

Grown-up Grüner Veltliner

When Grüner Veltliner first hit the U.S., more than 20 years ago, it was introduced as something cheap and cheerful. It was presented as quality wine, but for everyday drinking. You started to see Grüner Veltliner sold in liters. For two decades, this reputation has persisted.

But perception is not reality, and I’ve always carried the flag for Austrian Grüner Veltliner as one of the world’s great white wines. Its higher-end bottlings are supremely age worthy. I know, Americans are wary of “older” whites, but these wines will keep getting better and better.

Grüner Veltliner can have many different flavor profiles, depending on terroir. It can sometimes seem like Sauvignon Blanc and Viogner had a love child. It can sometimes veer Riesling-like, especially as it ages. But often, at its best, it can follow down the path of Chardonnay—but the very good Chardonnay, not that oaky, buttery Chardonnay that turned you against Chardonnay. The Burgundian Chardonnay.

The Austrian Wine Marketing Board has been heavily promoting single-vineyard bottlings—aka Riedenwein. There are over 4,000 single vineyard sites in Austria, though only a relative few are vinified on their own. The focus on single vineyards is rather recent. The label term Ried, designating specific Austrian vineyards, only came into effect in 2016. In 2021, Austrian Wine released a comprehensive wine atlas—perfect for geeks who love maps! But Austria producers were modeling their system on Burgundy long before 2016. Along the Danube, the Österreichische Traditionsweingüter, or ÖTW, is an association of 68 winemakers, formed in 1992, who created a classification system of Lower Austria’s vineyards in the regions of Kamptal, Kremstal, Trainsental, Wagram, Vienna, and Carnuntum. (The famed Wachau does its own thing, separately).

Specific vineyards in specific villages are singled out as Erste Lage, or premier cru. A top Kamptal wine, for instance, might label Käferberg or Loisenberg as its premier cru vineyards, in the village of Langenlois, or Heiligenstein in Zöbring, or Lamm and Renner in Kammern.

So, yes, things can get just as complicated and confusing as they are with Burgundy! Still, there’s an easy way to know if you have an Erste Lage wine: It has the umlauted image of 1ÖTW on the label. If you want to go a little deeper, here is a map of all the Erste Lagen along the Danube. Not every Austrian winery is a member of ÖTW—plenty of great wineries are not. So this is where the word Ried comes in. If you see Ried word on the label, you can be sure the wine comes from a single vineyard.

One thing that makes single-vineyard Grüner Veltliner distinctly different from Burgundy is price. Most everything I’ve tasted is about half the price of top Burgundy, or less. The issue is that they’re not particularly easy to find. Hopefully we’ll see more of them in the U.S. soon.

By the way, 2019 is an excellent vintage, one of the best of the 21st century—much like the famed 1999 and 2009 vintages. (In Austria, great vintages are easy to remember: just look for the 9s). I’ve tasted many of the 2019s. In general, while many are often big and bold, they still have great acidity and I believe they will age a long, long time.

Grüner Veltliner producers to seek out

Kamptal: Loimer, Schloss Gobelsburg, Bründlemayer; Wagram: Bernhard Ott, Diwald, Anton Bauer, Franz Leth; Traisental: Markus Huber, Ludwig Neumayer

Overlooked Barbaresco

Barbaresco should be more popular among American wine drinkers than it is. Why it’s not is a matter of numerous factors, including decades of gatekeeping, as I detailed in this article last spring. Barolo, of course, remains the most prestigious region for Nebbiolo, and the common wisdom is that you must wait years for these top wines to be ready to drink. But here’s something the gatekeepers have been slow to tell you: Things in Italy’s Piedmont region—particularly the climate—are changing.

The common wisdom on Barbaresco has always been that it’s more “approachable,” with more “finesse” and “elegance,” yet with less “power” and “ageability” than Barolo. Barbaresco has always had less aura around it than Barolo. Consequently, it’s also generally less expensive.

Given how the climate is changing our old definitions of Barolo—and given its current prices—wine buyers would do well to take a deeper look at Barbaresco. If you love Nebbiolo, do yourself a favor. While most top Barolo sells well north of $100 (and certain bottlings go for far higher) you can still find great Barbaresco for $40 to $80. Even top crus in Barbaresco can still be found below $100.

“I have no difficulties in saying there are top Barbaresco that are as good as the top Barolo,” Franco Massolino recently told me—a bold statement from one of Barolo’s largest producers.

Certainly, Barbaresco is not a secret. Angelo Gaja and Bruno Giacosa have been coveted by collectors for decades, and Roagna has become a more recent darling of Nebbiolo fans. Still, the roster of excellent Barbaresco producers is much longer.

Barbaresco’s top villages, Neive, Treiso, and Barbaresco, are less familiar than those in Barolo. Meanwhile, the crus (the so-called Menzioni Geografiche Aggiuntive or MGA) of Barbaresco were only officially recognized in 2007, and so are also less well-known. Still, certain prestige crus in Barbaresco are worth looking out for, such as Currà, Basarin, Rio Sordo, Rabajà, Gallina, Pajoré, Pajè (which Roagna owns), and Secondine (made famous by Gaja).

“Barbaresco was once a wine that people didn’t understand,” Michela Adriano, of Adriano Marco e Vittorio told me when I was last there. “But now the climate is warmer, and the wine is smoother, more approachable, and more elegant to drink.”

As far as vintages, there was a fine string of harvests from 2019 to 2021, with 2021 widely considered one of the best vintages in recent years. “If I could sign up now to have every year like 2021,” Riccardo Sobrino of Cascina della Rose said to me last year, “I would do it right now.”

Barbaresco producers to seek out

Sottimano, Cascina delle Rose, Lodali, Adriano Marco e Vittorio, Bruno Rocca, Ca’ del Baio, Orlando Abrigo, Rosanna Sandri, Produttori di Barbaresco, La Ca’ Nova. Many top producers known for Barolo such Oddero or Massolino also make excellent Barbaresco.

Trocken Riesling from Rheinhessen and Pfalz

A long time ago, in the U.S., the messaging on German wine got badly bent toward sweet wines. For decades, the older generation of importers and sommeliers loved selling “off-dry” (aka sweet) Rieslings to Americans and then trying to convince them they were actually dry, using something like a Jedi mind trick (“you see, the acidity balances the sweetness”). If I had a euro for every time I heard some wine professional tell a person that kabinett wines were “the driest German wines” I could buy a fairy-tale winery in the Pfalz. (For the record, kabinett wines are just the driest of the sweetest wines).

My stance has always been: German wine terms are not as confusing as people pretend they are. If we can learn terms like crianza or vinho verde or spumante or barrique or sur lie or a hundred other foreign wine words…we can learn trocken and Grosses Gewächs.

Meanwhile, over in Germany, people drink dry (ie. trocken) wines and not so much kabinett, spätlese, or auslese. For most Germans, Riesling is a dry wine. For dry Riesling, Rheingau has historically been the legacy region. That, however, is changing. Both Rheinhessen and Pfalz have emerged as regions with amazing and prestigious dry wines.

Rheinhessen, Germany’s largest wine region, which stretches south from Frankfurt and Mainz, has already been put on the map by producers that collectors love, such as Klaus Peter Keller, whose G-Max Riesling sells for $3,000 a magnum, as well as Philip Wittmann and up-and-coming Knewitz.

This current reputation of Rheinhessen would have been unthinkable two decades ago, when the area was mostly known as the home of Blue Nun and other cheap-and-sweet Liebfrauenmilch (“Milk of Our Lady”). “A lot of young winemakers opened their eyes and saw the potential in the region,” said Stefan Winter, who in 2000 took over his family’s Weingut Winter in the sleepy village of Dittelsheim.

One big reason is that the changing climate has actually helped Rheinhessen. “Everything we do is for the future. We all know it will keep getting warmer and warmer,” said Jochen Dreissigacker, a new-wave producer in Bechtheim, a village of only 1,800 people, though with more than 30 wineries.

“We had a really bad image here,” said Marc Weinreich of Weingut Weinreich, Dreissigacker’s neighbor in Bechtheim. “The last 10 years have been very exciting in Rheinhessen—lots of good new ideas. In the past, we had a lot of sweet wines on the list. Now, we only have one sweet wine.”

Equally exciting is Pfalz, stretching from the French border with Alsace north towards Heidelberg. The Weinstrasse here was Germany’s first official wine route, and there are great producers sprinkled throughout the region’s adorable villages. Some of them,  like Von Winning and Christmann, are now gaining traction in the U.S.

German dry Riesling producers to seek out

Rheinhessen: Winter, Wittmann, Knewitz, Gunderloch, Kühling-Gillot, Weinreich, Dreissigacker; Pfalz: Von Winning, Pfeffingen, Ökonomierat Rebholz, A. Christmann, Kranz, Dr. Wehrheim