David M. Bueker wrote:Ok - if you don't like Scheurebe, how about Rieslaner? Albalonga?
Rieslaner's interesting, but I haven't had as many crazy experiences with it as I have with Scheu. (Then again of the two Catoir Rieslaners I've had - that 01 was corked as you may remember, and an 04 at an Austrian/German OL was overshadowed by a bunch of other wines at the table.)
Albalonga... will wait until you open one of your Wittmanns before I comment.
The really great thing about Scheu is that while it's fairly scarce and hard to come by there are at least a decent handful of producers who do some really fun things with it - so a wider range of styles are at least out there on the market (whereas I've only seen 2-3 names consistently recommended for Rieslaner, and Wittmann's the only name I've ever seen attached to Albalonga).
In terms of red grapes... am starting to really like some of those lighter Austrian reds from Zweigelt and Blaufrankisch. There are some fascinating examples out there (and even better values than a lot of the Austrian whites in some cases).