Last year, I assembled all my favorites into one list, but because 2013 brought so many memorable wines I wanted to highlight, I had to separate them into top whites and top reds. Many of my favorite white wines of 2013 cost less than $20, and one can be had for less than $10 — yet more evidence that taking a risk on an unusual bottle can really pay off.

The 10 wines below represent a tiny taste of what’s out there beyond the giant industrial-sized brands found in every grocery store. These are wines with heart. They have to be, since most of the companies making these wines have minimal marketing budgets. 

I chose whites that surprised me one way or another, and whites that exhibited impressive balance. When a wine’s fruit, acids and other flavors are tautly in balance, it can be an absolutely thrilling experience. Don’t settle for white wines that are simply sweet and innocuous. There are too many beautifully lively bottles out there to waste your time with anything that doesn’t make you sit up and take notice.

You may not find all the wines below with ease, but if you see one that sounds particularly enticing, bring the description to your local wine shop and ask for something similar. A good wine shop will send you in the right direction.

And now, in alphabetical order, the most memorable white wines I tried in 2013:

ART+FARM “THE MESSENGER” WHITE WINE NUMBER ONE (LOT #412):

I’ve never seen a white blend quite like this one, but when I tasted it, I wondered why on earth no one thought of it before. A blend of 69% Sauvignon Blanc, 18% Muscat Canelli (also known as Muscat Blanc à Petit Grains or simply Muscat) and 13% Riesling, this beauty won over my entire crowd of tasters. One remarked, “I don’t usually like sweet wines, but I like this because it has a bite at the end.” Another more laconic taster just said, “Huge fan.”

I was immediately sucked in by the wine’s heady aroma of perfumed apples, leavened with a little funk. In this wine, it was crystal clear to me what each of the parts — sourced from both the 2010 and 2011 vintages — brought to the blend. It had the acids of a Sauvignon Blanc, the perfume of a Muscat and the lush texture of a Riesling. The wine exhibited both focus and restraint, and for $16 a bottle, it’s a smashing value.

2012 BOUZA ALBARINO:

The family-owned Bodega Bouza in Uruguay focuses on small production and low yields, according to its website. The Spanish Albariño grape variety has thick skins which help it withstand rot in humid climates, according to the Oxford Companion, which would seem to make Albariño an ideal choice for Uruguay. And indeed, I very much enjoyed this wine’s fresh and spicy aroma and its sharp, attention-grabbing flavors. After a start of juicy fruit, zesty acids kicked in, followed by a thrust of gingery spice and a finish of aspirin-like minerals. Powerful and exciting.

2012 LAPOSTOLLE “CASA GRAND SELECTION” SAUVIGNON BLANC:

The grapes for this wine come from the stony Las Kuras Vineyard in Chile’s Cachapoal Valley (south of Santiago), a former riverbed, and the vineyards are certified as both organic and biodynamic. Winemaker Andrea León Iriarte also noted that the grapes are harvested by hand at night, to help preserve freshness in the fruit.

The aroma was very reassuring, the rich lime and chalk notes already indicating a wine of fine balance. Iriarte and Lapostolle sought a round Sauvignon Blanc, in contrast to the sharp wines this variety sometimes produces. They succeeded. This Sauvignon Blanc had creamy fruit and focused, limey acids kept well in check. After a lift of white-pepper spice, the stone in the vineyards became apparent in the long finish. Complex and delicious.

What leaves me practically cross-eyed with disbelief is that this wine, which exhibits no small amount of finesse, can be had for less than $10 at Binny’s. It could stand toe-to-toe with Sancerres which cost more than twice as much. I can’t think of a better Sauvignon Blanc value to be had anywhere.

2008 CHIMNEY ROCK “ELEVAGE BLANC”:

I don’t often write about wines from Napa Valley, but this blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Sauvignon Gris blew me away. I couldn’t remember ever tasting a Sauvignon Gris, so I looked it up in my trusty Oxford Companion to Wine. This relatively rare variety is a pink-skinned mutation of Sauvignon Blanc, and “it can produce more substantial wines than many a Sauvignon Blanc,” the Companion asserts. Sauvignon Gris has a following in Bordeaux, the Companion goes on to note, which perhaps explains why the Elevage Blanc reminded me a bit of Pessac-Léognan, one of my favorite whites from Bordeaux (or from anywhere, for that matter). This beautiful wine practically glowed with elegance, its creamy fruit focusing into some carefully restrained white-pepper spice. Voluptuous but perfectly balanced — a joy to drink.

2010 HAINLE VINEYARDS ESTATE WINERY GEWÜRZTRAMINER ICE WINE: 

It’s rare to see a Gewürztraminer ice wine, I learned, because the fruit usually falls off the vine before the first frost, or at the very least loses its acidity. Conditions have to be just right, and with this British Columbian ice wine, Hainle hit a smashing home run. It had a rich but fresh honeysuckle aroma, and such verve on the palate! It started lush and sweet, as you might expect, but then startlingly zesty acids kicked in, followed by a pop of white-pepper spice. On the finish, I got a touch of orange along with an aromatic tobacco note. It was sublime. If you can find a way to get your hands on a bottle of this wine, for God’s sake, do it.

2011 MAZZONI PINOT GRIGIO:

I had never sampled, to my knowledge, a Tuscan Pinot Grigio. All the quality Italian Pinot Grigios I knew of came from the mountainous north, from Alto Adige or Friuli. A Tuscan Pinot Grigio varietal — a white Super Tuscan — is extremely unusual.

Many of us associate Pinot Grigio with light, inoffensive and bland flavors; it’s a wine for a hot summer pool party or a beach picnic. But this golden-hued beauty had some oomph. After pressing, the juice sits for 24 hours on the skins, giving the wine additional body, followed by 25 days of cold fermentation, increasing the wine’s acidity. The craftsmanship is readily apparent in both the aroma and flavor.

The wine smelled fresh and lively, like a green whiff of spring. On the palate, it exhibited focused and controlled fruit, prickly acids, some aromatic qualities, and a surprisingly lush finish. It was light but complex, and a fine value for the price. Sampled with a white pizza topped with arugula and parmesan, the food-friendly acids kicked into high gear, and the wine became juicier and rounder. A delight.

2010 PLANETA CARRICANTE:

The Carricante variety is “thought to have been growing on the volcanic slopes of Mt. Etna for at least a thousand years,” according to the Wine Searcher website. The Planeta expression of this ancient variety has a wonderfully seductive aroma with notes of honey, cedar and lily of the valley, one of my favorite flowers (a little like jasmine). A fellow taster remarked that “It smells like the best Kasugai gummy ever created.” I loved the lush fruit, flinty minerals and the focused, almost incense-like spice that just kept going and going. Paired with some pasta with orange cherry tomatoes, fresh fava beans, onions, olive oil, garlic and ground pork, the wine’s acids became even juicier and racier.

It was rich, complex, balanced and elegant, but even more impressive, the wine took me right back to Sicily. I could imagine myself at some trattoria in Taormina, sipping a glass at an outdoor table while I took in the view of Mt. Etna and the sea, a little incense wafting out of a nearby church. This was a wine truly expressive of its terroir.

2011 SCHNAITMANN “GRAU WEISS”:

A surprising blend of 20% Grauburgunder, 20% Weissburgunder and 60% Chardonnay, the Grau Weiss sounds a little crazy to me, but if anyone could get away with it, it would be a winery in the warm and sunny Baden-Württemberg region of Germany. A green-yellow color, the wine started with tart fruit, giving way to a buttery, sophisticated, almost Burgundian midsection. It sealed the deal by lifting into an aromatic, spicy finish. What a ride!

2012 SIMONNET-FEBVRE SAINT-BRIS SAUVIGNON BLANC:

On its label, this Sauvignon Blanc declares itself in no uncertain terms to be a “Grand Vin de Bourgogne.” Not quite believing my eyes, I turned to my trusty reference library for some answers as to what a Sauvignon Blanc was doing in Burgundy. According to The Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia, little Saint-Bris overcame “Burgundy’s Chardonnay-chauvinism” only in 2003, when it was finally granted full AOC status, a designation retroactively applied to the 2001 and 2002 vintages as well. The AOC has only about 250 acres of vineyards located southwest of the famed wine town of Chablis.

The Simonnet-Febvre Saint-Bris had my undivided attention as soon as I took a sniff. It had the classic Sauvignon Blanc aroma — green and juicy, with an unexpected and very enticing floral note on top. The flavor profile was absolutely fascinating. On one plane flowed the wine’s sweet, floral and elegant fruit, and on a parallel plane ran the very tart, pointy acids. These two planes battled it out for dominance in a most exciting fashion, but they didn’t feel integrated until I tried the wine with some food. Paired with a barley risotto studded with butternut squash, Brussels sprouts and bacon, the Saint-Bris’ two planes came together beautifully, balancing each other and cutting right through the richness of the dish. What an incredible value for $12!

2012 WEINGUT DR. VON BASSERMAN-JORDAN ÖLBERG: 

This single-vineyard Riesling from Germany’s Pfalz region is a Grosses Gewächs, a “Great Growth,” indicated by the “GG” on the label. Find those GGs if you can — they designate a vineyard of top quality, and grapes of at least Spätlese ripeness. “Spätlese” often connotes a sweet wine, but GG wines are classified as “trocken” (dry). This remarkable wine had a green, honeyed aroma, rather like a light Sauternes. I loved the rich, peachy fruit; the dry, white-peppercorn spice; and the forcefully driving acids keeping everything in taught balance.

With elegant classical symmetry, the grand Schloss Johannisberg stands over vineyards sweeping down to the storied Rhein River. Some of Germany’s most famous wines come from these slopes in the heart of the Rheingau.

I’d had such fun tasting wines in the friendly Pfalz region, I couldn’t wait to try some Rheingau vintages. They’re hardly unusual or obscure, but heck, even I dip into the well-known stuff from time to time.

And therein lies the problem. The Pfalz, for example, doesn’t see all that many visitors compared to the Rheingau, where once-charming towns such as Rüdesheim teem with tourists seeking to experience some of the Rhein’s legendary glory.

In the Pfalz, we simply walked into delightful wineries such as A. Christmann and Bassermann-Jordan and asked for a tasting. The staff seemed more or less happy to oblige even before they knew I was a wine blogger.

Here, that wasn’t the case. You’ll note that I didn’t title this post “Wine Tasting at Schloss Johannisberg.” No wine tasting happens here. When we entered what appeared to be the tasting room — it was really the shop — and requested a tasting, the fellow behind the counter looked at me like I had just asked for a free case of wine. “Yes, you can have a taste before buying, if you like,” he replied with a raised eyebrow.

I had no intention of buying anything, what with the current histrionic rules regarding liquids in carry-on bags. “I would like to taste a number of wines,” I replied, “and I would be happy to pay for a tasting.”

“We don’t do that sort of thing here,” was the brusque response. With hauteur worthy of the archetypal Parisian sommelier, he continued, “You won’t be able to taste wine that way in Germany.”

Worn out glasses at Schloss Johannisberg

First of all, that’s not true, and second, is that something to be proud of? I could have pulled the blogger card at this point and perhaps he would have softened, but I had no intention of tasting anything with this irritating shop clerk. We walked instead to the restaurant, with admittedly lovely panoramic views down to the Rhein, and ordered two half-glasses of wine.

I enjoyed both the fresh and spicy 2011 Rotlack Riesling Kabinett Trocken and the lush and gingery 2007 Grünlack Riesling Spätlese, but I can tell you I won’t be purchasing either of these wines any time soon. There are too many wonderful Rieslings in Germany to bother with wines from this snobby Schloss. Instead, consider a single-vineyard Riesling from the friendly Pfalz, or perhaps a finely crafted wine from the ever-reliable and equally friendly Dr. Loosen in the Mosel Valley.

Leave Schloss Johannisberg to the tourists.

German Riesling isn’t anything all that obscure or unusual, but it is all too rare that we buy the really exciting stuff. Frequently, stores are larded with candy wines like Schwarze Katz and Blue Nun. Many people therefore dismiss German wines the way Putin dismisses Obama — as sweet and simple.

This misconception is easily dispelled, at least in the first case, by trying one or two high-quality German Rieslings. At their best, German Rieslings display lush fruit, zesty acids, laser focus and perhaps a dry breath of minerality. They come in quite a range of styles as well, ranging from voluptuous to positively austere, meaning that there’s a German Riesling for every white-wine drinker.

It would take decades to learn the nuances of German vineyards, even in a single region like the Pfalz, even if the vineyards didn’t have intimidating names like Königsbacher Ölberg. But do remember the name “Pfalz” (pronounced “pfahlts”). This mild wine region east of the Rhein is, political boundaries aside, really a northerly extension of the Alsace. The Pfalz is Germany’s “most exciting wine region,” according to The World Atlas of Wine, and its single-vineyard wines are worth seeking out.

A single-vineyard wine will usually be indicated by an semi-unpronounceable word ending in -er, followed by another semi-unpronounceable word. Seeing a word ending in “-garten” or “-berg” can be another telltale sign of a single-vineyard wine.

The different vineyards of the Pfalz produce a range of different wines, but on a recent visit to the region, I found every one I tried to be delightful. Here are some examples of what you can expect.

Rieslings from WEINGUT A. CHRISTMANN, tasted at its winery in Gimmeldingen:

• 2012 Deidesheimer Paradisgarten — Garden of paradise indeed. This wine smelled of candy, citrus and flowers. Despite its lush texture, this wine kept itself tightly wound, finishing with firmly controlled spice.
• 2012 Gimmeldinger Biengarten — This vineyard’s name translates as “Garden of Bees,” and its wine knocked me flat. The aroma was surprisingly dark, with a note of wood in it. The extravagantly rich texture of the wine was leavened by stone, lime peel and white pepper spice, and the finish went on for ages. Absolutely delicious.
• 2012 Gimmeldinger Kapellenberg — I couldn’t find this vineyard on the winery’s website, but it must have a privileged location. The wine had a more honeyed quality, but long-lasting gingery acids kept it admirably balanced, as did a floral lift on the finish.
• 2012 Königsbacher Ölberg — This focused wine tasted more austere than those above, with appealing notes of white flowers and lime. Tightly controlled acids kept it carefully balanced.

Rieslings from WEINGUT DR. VON BASSERMAN-JORDAN, tasted at its winery in Deidesheim:

• 2012 Kieselberg — The full name of the vineyard is “Deidesheimer Kieselberg,” but the label omits the “Deidesheimer,” making it a bit harder to quickly identify it as a single vineyard wine. It had a clean, crisp aroma and lively, almost prickly acids keeping the floral fruit in balance. Some focused spice on the finish.
• 2012 Ungeheuer — Again, it would be easier to identify this wine as a single-vineyard Riesling if the label used the full vineyard name, “Forster Ungeheuer.”  This Riesling is smashingly good. The aromas of melon and citrus sucked me right in, and the wine delivered complex, lively flavors. Sprightly, limey acids balanced the rich fruit, followed by green peppercorn spice and an aromatic finish. A dewy spring morning in a bottle.
• 2012 Ölberg — This wine is a Grosses Gewächs, a “Great Growth,” indicated by the “GG” on the label. Find those GGs if you can — they designate a vineyard of top quality, and grapes of at least Spätlese ripeness. “Spätlese” often connotes a sweet wine, but GG wines are classified as “trocken” (dry). This remarkable wine had a green, honeyed aroma, rather like a light Sauternes. I loved the rich, peachy fruit; the dry, white-peppercorn spice; and the forcefully driving acids keeping everything in taught balance. (Note that GGs appear only on labels of recent vintages.)
• 2011 Jesuitengarten — This Grosses Gewächs had another richly green, enticing aroma. A laser focus cut right through the fruit, leading to a finish that seemed almost endless. Sebastian Wandt (pictured above), who conducted this tasting, told me to seek out wines from vineyards with religious names (Jesuitengarten translates as “Garden of the Jesuits”). The church, he alerted me, used to own all the best vineyards.

Skimming over the tasting notes, you’ll see a pattern — rich fruit balanced by lively acids and focused spice. These single-vineyard Rieslings from the Pfalz are beautiful on their own, and even better paired with autumnal dishes like roast pork and roast chicken, or pasta with cream sauce. Pfalz’s single-vineyard Rieslings cost a little more, but those willing to spend a few extra dollars will be amply rewarded.

Lemberger

In addition to Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir), Germany grows a number of other red grape varieties quite successfully, as I rediscovered on a recent visit. An unusual but traditional varietal such as Lemberger was fun to drink, but what really made me want to stand up and yodel was the Merlot and the Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot blend I tried. Wow. Who would have thought that these varieties, which reach their apex in warm, maritime Bordeaux, could do so well in cool, continental Germany?

Apparently, some smart German winemakers thought so. The World Atlas of Wine notes that there have been some “convincing experiments” with red Bordeaux varieties in Württemberg, and you can consider me convinced. Not all German reds are worth trying — many are still thin and sweet — but after tasting the Spätburgunders described in this post and the wines detailed below, I am certain that there is a German red for everyone.

2010 Staatsweingut Weinsberg Lemberger Trocken:  This wine comes from Württemberg, an area just north of Stuttgart which the Atlas says is “really red wine country.” It started fruity and sweet, and I feared it would be a simple snoozer, but then a blast of black-pepper spice kicked in, ensuring that there was no way I would sleep through this glass of wine. You might have tried a Lemberger and not known it — the variety is especially popular in Austria, where it’s known as Blaufränkisch.

2007 Geisel Weinbau Brentano “R” Markelsheimer Probstberg Merlot Trocken: I had a devil of a time finding a website for this single-vineyard wine (Probstberg is the vineyard name), but I have a sneaking suspicion it’s produced by the same Geisel family which owns the hotel where I tried it, the Königshof in Munich. The restaurant’s adventurous sommelier selected this wine from northern Württemberg to pair with a main course of rabbit with artichokes, spinach and saffron, and it was startlingly delicious. I knew I was in for a treat when I gave the wine a first sniff, enjoying the aroma of ripe red fruit and earth. It had a velvety texture, rich fruit and big but firmly controlled spice. Absolutely excellent.

2010 Weingut Fritz Wassmer “Cuvée Félix” Cabernet & Merlot: This Bordeaux-style blend comes from the far southwestern corner of Baden, the southwesternmost state of Germany. I felt especially excited to try it because it comes from a town called Bad Krozingen, just a few miles from where I studied abroad in Freiburg. Again there was that velvety red fruit that I love, followed by some soft spice and a smokey finish of tobacco. It paired perfectly with an insanely large portion of Zwiebelrostbraten (roast beef with caramelized onions), and, oddly enough, it worked with the asparagus as well.